


Hopelessly Devoted to You

by multi_angxls



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, College AU, College!AU, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Pining, Slow Burn, Soulmates, college soulmates!au, no seriously it's such a slow burn, second love excellence, slowburn, soulmates!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 59,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28155063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multi_angxls/pseuds/multi_angxls
Summary: “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”  — Plato.On your 21st birthday, you gain the ability to hear whatever music your soulmate is listening to, no matter the time or place. It isn’t always a romantic soulmate. Some people don’t even hear music at all. That’s the way things have been for as long as Matt Casey can remember. But in his senior year of college, with his 21st birthday around the corner, his world flips upside down when he realizes the woman he’s in love with might not be his soulmate after all.The only question is: if not Gabriela Dawson, then who?
Relationships: Brettsey - Relationship, Sylvie Brett/Matthew Casey
Comments: 142
Kudos: 243





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMERS:
> 
> This might not be a completely realistic college experience because I don’t attend an American university, but it’s fanfiction so a little change never hurt anyone.
> 
> The character background stories aren’t identical to the ones in the show but I mean, can you blame me? Casey’s mother killed his father and that is a little too dark for what I’m trying to write.
> 
> Finally, this fic starts off with a pre-established Dawsey for the first few chapters. This depicts Dawsey as a toxic relationship but is in NO WAY meant as an insult to Gabby’s character. In this house, we respect women, and we respect writing. 
> 
> I hope you guys like it :)

“CAMPUS _NEWS UPDATE: Due to excessive complaints from soulmates about migraines due to loud noise, campus parties will now be limited to under 100 senior students over the age of 21. Any and all actions going against this rule must be reported to the authorities, and those involved can face fines of up to 800 dollars._ ” 

Warm sunlight shines in through the dorm windows on the University of Chicago campus. The early autumn breeze whistles outside the window, but the summer heat still looms in the air and the leaves have managed to keep their vibrant green colour. The old stone buildings revel in the morning sunrise as it shines through the windows and into the dorms and apartment buildings adjacent to the campus. 

Matt Casey hears the sparrows chirping through the cracked open window first. It’s a weirdly soothing sound, the morning birds that were once a nuisance now slowly easing him into consciousness. Here, tangled up in his messy bedsheets, he forgets about the world around him. Then, sounds of the campus news channel coming from outside his bedroom flood in, announcing the new mandate. His mind is awake now, the peppy voices making him alert and all too familiar with reality: that in two weeks, everything changes. Matt groans, rolls over on his other side and flinches when he sticks his arm out and feels the empty space next to him. _She’s_ not there. He opens his eyes and squints at the sun, checks his alarm clock for the time. 5:30. _Jesus fucking christ_. Why is it so early? 

Pulling off the sheets feels like heaven. He had gotten so hot during the night that it felt like his skin had stuck to the clean white bedsheets like glue. Matt drags himself out of bed, looking around the tiny, one-bedroom apartment. It’s all they can afford off of their part-time jobs, but it’s home. He grumbles, making his way out of the bedroom. 

“Morning, sunshine.” Surely enough, his girlfriend is sitting on the ledge of the table in their tiny kitchen, already dressed and listening to the campus news channel on her laptop. Her focus turns solely to him, her smirk playful and endearing. She sips on her cup of coffee, keeping her eyes on him as he rubs his eyes lazily. 

Gabriela Dawson is many things, and puckish is definitely one of them. 

“Morning,” he mumbles into her lips as he kisses her contentedly, his hands grabbing onto the table. She passes him a mug with coffee in it which Matt takes, appreciative of the sweet gesture. Sipping it instantly sends energy flooding back to him. These past three years of college have seriously messed up his relationship with caffeine. “Remind me why I’m awake so early again?” 

“Orientation.” 

“Right,” he remembers, winces at the thought. 

Orientation is a bigger deal for the freshmen than it is for the seniors. Seniors get extra credit in some classes for helping out with the orientation activities, depending on what professors you have, but the whole week before classes is really just to help the new kids get adjusted to things before they start. There are trivia games, team-building exercises, stuff like that. It’s supposed to be a blast for the freshmen but ends up being pure torture for seniors like Matt. Looking back, he thinks the signup sheet for orientation volunteers should have come with a warning sign. Preferably with flashing lights and a big red stop sign. “I better get dressed. I’m going to be late, I’m supposed to be helping Professor Lockwood set everything up.” 

“Then I guess you’re pretty lucky you have a girlfriend who made you breakfast then, aren’t you?” She hops off the table to reveal croissants and bagels with cream cheese. “And by _made_ , I mean bought at Starbucks.” 

He smiles, grabs a croissant off the plate, and gives her a quick peck on the cheek before taking a bite. “Thanks.” His mouth is full of the buttery, warm croissant as he thanks her. “Is that why you got up so early?” 

“No, actually,” she counters. “Professor Goodwin asked me to come in early and talk to her about some extra credit opportunity for my Social Welfare Policy class coming up this semester.” 

“Hey, that’s great news! Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” 

“I just found out about it yesterday when she emailed me,” Gabby explains defensively. “Besides, I got caught up checking the news.” She eyes her computer sitting on the table next to her, still opened on the tab with the news, but shuts the computer quickly.

She’s doing it again. Obsessing over the news, making herself even more worried than she already is. He should have known things would get worse. Their birthdays are getting closer and closer. In exactly thirteen days, he’ll finally be 21 and will know who his soulmate is, and her birthday is only a week after his. Honestly, the fact that they have birthdays in the fall just seems to be the universe’s way of torturing them. 

Soulmates have existed for as long as Matt can remember. Ever since they were in grade school, they’ve been taught that on your 21st birthday, you gain the ability to hear the music your soulmate listens to, from anywhere, at any time or place in the world. His dad always used to say people were linked at the ears to make them better listeners, but all that got was a chuckle from their friends and family members. Now, he knows better than to laugh at the ways of the universe; at the cosmic connection that can tear people up inside. It’s a power that is still beyond human understanding, which means Matt is more than happy to stay away from trying. Matt sighs, “My birthday’s not coming any faster. Trust me, I’m just as disappointed as you are.”

She nods understandingly but switches the subject at once. “Do you think we could date night tomorrow tonight? We can order takeout from that Thai place. God knows we can’t afford much else anyway if we want to pay rent and tuition.” 

“That sounds perfect,” Matt beams. She kisses him intensely, her lips starved for his. He knows she’s just trying to avoid talking about the news, but he just doesn’t care at this point. They could use some lighthearted fun, after all. The semester hasn’t even started yet and Matt will be damned if he lets them get down on themselves. 

Gabby laughs, eventually pulling away from the kiss. “Alright, I have to get going. If Professor Goodwin sees me with a hickey there’s no chance in hell I’m getting that extra credit opportunity.” 

“Yeah, but it’d be so worth it though, don’t you think?” He lets his tone get cocky and sly. She gives in for a moment and then, just as quickly as it had started, it ends and she pulls her neck away from his lips, laughing. 

“And you have to get going too if you want to make it to the orientation on time.” 

Matt checks the clock on the wall. “Shit. Now I’m really running late. Alright,” he turns to her and kisses her again before running to get dressed. “Give ‘em hell, babe.” 

“Oh I will,” she quips, raises her eyebrow as she makes her way to the door. “Oh,” he hears her call out to him from his bedroom as she makes her way to the door, “and babe, don’t forget we’re meeting the gang for dinner today. The Bartoli's next to that old laundromat is open again so we’re meeting there, 6:00. Don’t be late!” With that, Gabby heads out and Matt hears the door shut behind her as he slips into a pair of jeans and brushes his teeth hurriedly. He fights back the cheery smile that forms on his face at the thought of seeing his friends all together as he packs all his notes into his shoulder bag and leaves. He prepares himself for how damn long this morning is going to feel. 

The drive to the university gym center is short, and it only takes him a few minutes to find his way into the basketball court. Professor Lockwood is standing in the dead center of the gym, surrounded by piles of cheap t-shirts with the university logo stamped on the front. The shirts are in a massive pile on the gym floor in different tacky, neon colours. There are fold-up tables all around the gymnasium and he recognizes one or two of his classmates rushing around with him. He doesn’t know whether it’s just early and he’s cranky or if he’s imagining it, but the gym feels louder than usual and the sound of the massive electric fans buzzing fills the room. Matt finds it agitating, wondering how the people who are already 21 must feel. He can’t imagine being in this gym while having a soulmate blasting EDM tracks at 5 am like some people do. Gabby has a much more modest taste in music, fortunately, so he figures he’ll be fine if she’s his soulmate. _When she’s your soulmate_ , he reminds himself. 

Maggie Lockwood looks around frantically as seniors run around her. “Professor Lockwood?” Matt leans over to make eye contact with her gaze, looking around sharply. 

“Matt! Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, of course. How can I help out?” 

“We,” she starts, picks up a pile of lanyard off of a table and thrusts them into his arms. “need you to pass these out. There will be one or two seniors for every group of freshmen. The new kids aren’t here yet but the list of names is here.” She hands him a clipboard with a sheet of paper. “Make sure the seniors get the lanyards for everyone in their group before the tours. When you’re done with that, I need your help organizing those t-shirts by colour. We’re selling those later for kids who want them.” 

“You got it.” He struggles with the cluster of lanyards, scans the list for names, and starts passing around lanyards to his classmates. 

He’s a little disappointed that his friends didn’t sign up for this. Originally, he had been less than receptive to the idea. But Professor Lockwood, his Business professor, had seen leadership potential in him or something. He had tried to get his friends to do it with him, but they were all either uninterested or too busy. So, he passes out lanyards by himself. He doesn’t love the idea of having to deal with a bunch of freshmen, but he wants to prove himself to Professor Lockwood, so he does his best and puts on a smile. 

Thankfully, the tacky school merch is for sale to the freshmen and not the volunteers, so he gets to stay in his t-shirt and jeans. When he finishes making four separate piles of t-shirts, grabs his clipboard and lanyards. He looks for his name and then his corresponding freshmen and their lanyards. His group is big, he realizes, though not much bigger than the other groups. 

Matt then grabs some t-shirts and waits with Professor Lockwood’s other select few students. It only takes a few minutes for the fresh blood to start rolling in. One by one, they get organized into groups. Just like that, it begins and Matt shifts into work mode. 

Having a successful orientation is pretty simple: icebreakers. Matt takes his group through the campus, gives them a tour of all the biggest, flashiest selling points as instructed by professor Lockwood. They make their trip past the swimming pool, the auditorium, and the dining halls. Matt, along with the other volunteers with their respective groups, brings them to a strip of grass to do some ice breakers. All the little annoying games you play as a kid in elementary school to get to know each other better? Yeah, those don’t go away when you grow up. At least not yet. And, by some hellish miracle, they get even more annoying. Matt goes through them though, encourages everyone to participate. The new students all have that excited look in their eyes, still oblivious to the nightmares college has to offer and viewing college as just another trip to Disneyland. It’s part of the reason why so many shirts get sold, even though they’re overpriced. Half the kids here probably blink at cash like it’s nothing though, so it’s expected that people start shoving money at him to give to Lockwood. He distinguishes between the overachievers and the shy kids pretty quickly, and figures out which kids know which even faster. The morning ends up being half pleasant, actually. He likes taking charge, likes putting his leadership skills to the test. It’s cheesy, but it’s true. The icebreakers go by slowly but Matt goes off book a little bit by letting them play dumb games like “Would You Rather” or “Desert Island”. He gets a few laughs and feels kind of old after he puts 

He’s walking them through the history of the university, explaining the campus housing, when someone asshole starts making snarky, not-so-subtle comments in front of the group. He doesn’t even look at the lanyard to get the guy’s name, glares at him as he tries to get more laughs out of his fellow freshmen. 

“Hey. Do you have something you want to share?” 

“Just that, well… this is a joke. I don’t want to just prance around here and pretend to have school spirit. That’s a big no for me, man.” He shakes his head dismissively. 

“Then don’t. You’re not cheerleaders, these are just icebreakers. Now, if you could let me finish what I was saying—”

“Well fuck, man, I was just saying that maybe you could just let us do what we actually want to do. This thing is no fun.”

“Yeah and I don’t care. You have to be here either way, so shut up and listen.” Everyone goes quiet. 

“This is ridiculous,” the freshman scoffs. Matt looks at his shiny, gelled back hair, figuring he must be one of those rich kids who’s here off of his parent’s money. 

“He said shut up, _asshole_ ,” Matt hears someone snarl from the back of the group. He’s taken aback by the sharp tone, but finds the guy who shouted. He notices the guy’s thick brown hair, his friend standing next to him. They’re the quieter kids, Matt remembers. He noticed earlier that they stuck together through the whole tour, talking strictly to each other. His friend looks nervous, his dark brown eyes looking at him apologetically on behalf of his friend. The freshman who shouted keeps glaring at the asshole who mouthed off. Matt glances at their lanyards, then back to his list. Blake Gallo and Darren Ritter. 

“Thanks,” Matt nods appreciatively at the guy he now knows is Blake Gallo before returning to his speech about each building’s history. 

The rest of the day is fairly simple, and he notices Blake staring at anyone who tries mouthing off. Matt snaps a couple more times and everyone seems to quiet down a little bit. It’s a rowdy crowd, but he powers through it. 

Eventually, the whole orientation is over for the day. The freshmen spread out over the campus to do some exploring of their own and Matt is left to clean up the mess and write notes on the first day. It’ll help for the paper he has to turn in on how his leadership developed during this whole week, but his handwriting is messy and all he can think of right now is being done with the whole thing. Matt goes back to the gym, hands his attendance clipboard back to Lockwood, and is just about to walk around the gym pondering what to do when he remembers he’s supposed to meet his friends for dinner. His watch reads 5:45 so he rushes out of the gym and makes his way to the dining hall. 

He’s halfway down the quad when he runs into the two kids from his meet who helped him out. Blake Gallo and Darren Ritter. They’re sitting on the brick wall, talking quietly among themselves. Matt doesn’t think much of it at first, figures he’ll see them tomorrow, but they just look so… bored. They’re not doing anything, really, just talking to each other. Matt thinks about it for a minute and decides to talk to them. Screw it if he’s late. His friends will be there when he gets back. Besides, what kind of leader would he be if he didn’t at least try and make these two kids feel welcome? 

“Hey. Blake, right?” He points at the more outgoing one, who nods enthusiastically. 

“Yeah, I’m Blake. Blake Gallo. Sorry about that guy earlier. He was a real jackass.” 

“Dude!” His friend whispers to him, kicks him gently in the shins. Clearly, he’s not as appreciative of Gallo’s gallantry. “I’m sorry, he doesn’t mean that. He’s just kind of a daredevil. Can’t sit still for more than ten minutes. He’s been like that his entire life,” his friend rambles apologetically. Gallo scoffs in disagreement at the statements made about his character. 

“No, don’t worry. You’re right, that guy was an ass. As a volunteer I probably shouldn’t be saying that though, so you didn’t hear it from me,” Matt jokes. 

“Yeah, right,” Gallo laughs. “Oh, uh, this is Darren Ritter.” 

“You can call me Ritter though,” the boy says quietly, the tiniest blush coming through onto the cheeks of his dark skin. 

“Hates his first name,” Gallo explains. 

Matt can’t help but smile a little. These dudes are a little odd, that’s for sure, but they seem so tight-knit. He just likes them. Something about them just seems really genuine. “So, what are you guys doing out here?” 

“Oh, well we were going to have dinner out here but _somebody_ packed two PB & J’s for our entire dinner.” 

Ritter throws an accusatory glance at Gallo, who raises his hands in defense. “Hey, these things are good. They’re, like, brain food. Trust me.” Ritter rolls his eyes.

“You guys don’t have any other friends going here?” 

“No,” Ritter explains, “We’ve been best friends since high school, we mostly just hang out with each other. We had another friend, Violet, but she moved south to go to med school.” 

Matt glances at them and thinks for a moment. Gallo and Ritter seem lonely. And they’d definitely fit into Matt’s friend group. Honestly, the resemblances between them and Joe and Otis is uncanny. Both duos are practically joint at the hip. So, in possibly the weirdest turn of events this year so far, he decides to invite the two new kids to dinner with him and his friends. “Hey, uh, if you guys want you can join me. I’m meeting my friends at Bartoli’s, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind some extra company. Besides, deep-dish pizza on a nice table is much more comfortable than dirt and sandwiches.” 

Ritter and Gallo exchange hesitant looks, but Matt can tell that Gallo wants to come and Ritter does too, goes along with it. “Ok, sure,” Gallo nods. He and Ritter hop off the wall and fall into step with Matt, making their way to the dining hall. Matt has no idea how his friends will react to him bringing two freshmen along but hopes they’ll be nice enough to these poor guys. 

They walk into the pizza joint and Matt doesn’t really have a hard time locating Gabby and the rest of their friend group. There are other people there but he can always count on his friends to be the loudest. Half of them aren’t even sitting on the chairs but rather on the table, leaning over and grabbing out of deep dish pizza boxes. Bartoli’s has a pretty relaxed ambiance though, and they’ve been coming there for years so the owners don’t mind them making themselves at home. 

Kelly, Matt’s best friend, is getting in some friendly, goofy squabble with his girlfriend Stella. Joe and Otis are huddled over their laptop looking at something intently, and Gabby is talking with her best friend Sylvie. 

“You’re late, babe.” Gabby smiles as she gets up and greets him, kissing him tenderly. 

“I know, I’m sorry.” He places a quick, chaste kiss on her lips before remembering why he was late in the first place and pulling away. “I, uh, I brought some company. Everybody, this is Blake Gallo and Darren Ritter. They’re freshmen here at UChicago and I figured they could join us. Gallo, Ritter, this is everybody.” 

The group seems warm and inviting, as he would have expected, and they all wave at the two kids enthusiastically and mumble their greetings. 

“Ok,” he starts as he sits on the table. Half their group are on the table instead of their chairs anyway, and he likes the way Gabby’s head leans against his side as Gallo and Ritter take the two empty chairs left. “Everybody, introduce yourselves. You know, names, majors, stuff like that. Go,” he points at Kelly. 

“Ok, uh, hi. I’m Kelly Severide. I’m here on a football scholarship.” He does a playful salute before continuing, “I’m majoring in History. Or maybe English? I don’t know, actually. My parents are rich but they’re also kind of, you know… assholes. So I’m taking a shit ton of random courses. Haven’t done much to piss them off yet this semester, but the night is young.” 

“Ah, yes, sweet dysfunction and arguments. I swear I don’t even need to prepare for the debate club, Mr. Rich Boy over here can teach me how to argue. After all, he does it all the time,” Stella smirks slyly at Severide while sitting in his lap with her feet kicked up, who grunts and runs a hand through his short, peppery hair. Everyone in their group of friends has enough money to work their way through university. But Kelly is a whole other level of rich kid that they make fun of him for on the daily. Like, his asshole father Benny owns the apartment complex that both Matt, Gabby, Stella and himself live in type of rich. It’s why Matt’s been able to get their price of rent knocked down a bit, but it doesn’t stop them from poking fun at Severide and his daddy issues all of the time, even if it pisses him off sometimes. 

“And that’s my soulmate, Stella. You can tell by the way she speaks so lovingly about me,” he quips, laying the sarcasm on thick. 

“Aw, you know I got nothing but love for you, Kelly.” She pouts playfully and kisses him, Severide laughing as her thick brown curls get in the way. When she turns back around to face Gallo and Ritter, she continues. “Hi. I’m Stella Kidd. I’m a Poli Sci major. I’m going to be big in politics, following in the footsteps of our lord and saviour AOC,” she jokes before continuing. “I’m dating this adorable idiot over here, and you haven’t known true strength until you’ve put up with your soulmate putting Bruce Springsteen albums on repeat for 10 hours. It’s hell, let me tell you that.” 

Gallo and Ritter laugh along, watching in awe as Matt’s friends keep going. Behind Stella and Kelly sits Otis and Joe. “Hey! I’m Joe Cruz, I’m in Design Tech. This is Brian Zvonecek, aka Otis. He’s a Computer Science major, which is why he’s huddling over his laptop now like his life depends on it.” He shoots Otis a pointed look, who looks up from his computer and glares at Joe momentarily and then turns his attention to the new guys. 

“Otis?” Ritter’s brow quirks up. 

“They call me Otis because freshman year I got stuck in an elevator for four hours on the way to class and missed the first day of school,” Otis grumbles. “Hi there. Word of advice: never get into coding. It single-handedly gave me depression,” he teases grimly. 

“Oh, yikes,” Ritter winces. Gallo laughs a little under his breath, but Ritter elbows him in the stomach to shut him up. 

“Ok, and moving on from that lovely positive attitude,” Matt urges, trying to keep it going. “Sylvie, it’s your turn.” 

“I’m Sylvie. Sylvie Brett. I’m friends with these crazy people and I am majoring in Marketing,” she nods sweetly. 

“Oh yeah, she’s planning on being a top-notch real estate agent. Best of the best,” Matt nods. Sylvie tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, the way she always does when she gets a compliment that she doesn’t know how to take. Which, now that he thinks about it, is every compliment. 

“And that one there? The one that’s dating my best friend?” She points at Matt, giggling, “is majoring in Architecture & Construction. He builds, I sell. It’s like Bob the Builder meets Property Brothers. Total dream team,” she cheers as they high-five. Their complementary majors have been a running gag between the two of them for as long as Matt can remember. 

“And I’m Gabby, Gabby Dawson. I’m Matt Casey’s totally awesome girlfriend,” she teases, still lounging against his ribs. “I’m majoring in Social Work right now. Hoping to change the world someday. I mean, that’s the dream, right? Plus getting this homebody over here to do some traveling with me. My dad’s covered our finances for the next four years so god knows we could do it.” 

“Awesome,” Gallo replies eagerly. It makes Gabby laugh, and Matt leans down to kiss her. 

“Haha, very funny. I’m not a homebody,” he protests. “But you’re definitely going to kick some ass.” Matt knows that much for sure. Gabby’s always been idealistic and headstrong, not to mention fearless as hell. 

“Why thank you,” she teases. 

“Uh, so that’s everybody,” Matt nods. “What are you guys thinking about going into?”

“I’m going into Communications & Media Studies,” Ritter explains as he points to Blake, “but this one over here is going into Marketing as well.”

“Hey, nice! Welcome to the club,” Sylvie exclaims, reaching over the table to fist bump Gallo.

“Thanks,” Gallo agrees, Ritter nodding along. They sit down in their seats, squished in between everybody and next to Matt’s legs. “So, uh, how did you guys all meet?” 

“English.” The seven of them say it all at once and then burst into laughter. 

“We all had the same English class freshman year, made a study group to avoid failing and have been friends ever since,” Kelly explains, bumping his fist against Matt’s shoulder. Severide and Gabby have known each other since high school, and Joe, Otis, and Sylvie do too, but other than that, everyone met in their one, fateful english class. Matt laughs, sighs while remembering the good old days when things were simple and all they had to worry about was how to summarize Jane Austen novels without actually having read them. Their group has been through so much since then, made so many memories to be thankful for. It makes him weirdly nostalgic. “How do you two know each other? And how did you meet Matt?”

Gallo laughs, “Ritter and I know each other from high school. We were never really all that popular so we sort of just stuck together and became best friends. And he,” Gallo explains as he points at Matt, “lead us through orientation. He’s good too, he had some really cool tips.” 

“Ah, did you tell them the one about not commenting on Professor Herrmann’s age? That one’s an important one,” Stella nods, looking at Matt. 

“Yeah, Otis and I learned that one the hard way. Always avoid the wrath of Herrmann,” Joe adds, shuddering at the memory. 

“He did, actually. I have Professor Herrmann for my Entrepreneurship class this semester, so that’ll be helpful,” Gallo nods appreciatively. 

“They’re following in our footsteps,” Matt jokes, taking a slice of pizza and biting into it. In their regular fashion, Gabby wipes the tiny bit of pizza sauce that gets caught in the corner of his lips, and he smiles as her thumb swipes against his skin. 

“Uh, I have a question,” Ritter starts, his voice nervous and mousy. 

“Shoot,” Otis shrugs, gesturing to everyone at the table. 

“Uh… do you guys, uh… If you don’t mind me asking… have you guys all met your soulmates yet?” 

Matt figures it was only a matter of time before they got curious. Most freshmen are eager to know about the juniors and seniors who have already turned 21 and started hearing whatever music their soulmates listens to. It’s always hot gossip among the younger kids, the forbidden fruit of information that they constantly whisper about. He remembers a time when that was him, if he’s being honest. Still, he picks up on everyone’s slightly tense reactions. Nobody seems to be saying much until Stella chirps, “Kelly and I figured out we were soulmates earlier back in January when I was listening to Alanis Morisette in class two buildings away from him.”

“Yeah, and you listen to your music way too loud, by the way,” Kelly teases, tickling her sides. 

“Otis and his girlfriend Lily found out at the end of the year last year during exams,” Matt continues, his tone more formal and cold as he points at Otis. “Joe here is already 21 but he hasn’t met his soulmate yet. Keeps hearing Charlie Parker and doesn’t know how to tell who the hell it is.” He feels Gabby’s laughter against his ribcage and Gallo and Ritter both smile at the two of them. 

“So you two are soulmates?” Ritter asks. _Fuck_. Matt curses in his head as he feels Gabby tense up under his arms. Frankly, he feels himself tense up too. Ritter is a sweet guy, that much is obvious to Matt, so he knows it was a well-intentioned question. But the timing just really sucks. His birthday is coming up in two weeks and if this morning showed him anything, it’s that Gabby is spiraling almost as much as he is. 

“No,” Matt replies, his lips pursed as he shifts tensely. “Well, not yet at least. But my birthday’s coming up in two weeks.” 

“Oh, I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“No, it’s alright,” Matt reassures the two best friends, “I already know that this woman is going to be my soulmate. I don’t need some special musical connection to tell me that.” He squeezes Gabby in a tight hug with his one arm, rubbing her shoulder. The tension is still there in her, but she loosens up a little, leaning back onto Matt’s side. 

Gallo and Ritter end up fitting in really well with the group. Kelly gives Gallo information about the football tryouts. As captain and quarterback, Kelly assures Gallo, ever the rambunctious football fan, that he’ll have no trouble getting onto the team. Stella laughs and makes a quip about Gallo following in her idiot jock boyfriend’s steps, and their conversation switches to sports stats quickly after that. Joe and Otis keep getting into strangely aggressive thumb wars next to them. Ritter, not surprisingly, remains fairly quiet. Sylvie sits next to him and answers questions he has about college. Ritter starts to open up eventually, telling the cute story of how he and Gallo met and of his experience in high school. Matt smiles as he joins in their conversation, glad that they’re getting along. He and Sylvie have always been pretty tight, sticking together in the several classes they share. There’s a lot of overlap between their majors so they’ve been trading notes since freshman year. He knows he can always turn to her, can always trust her as a friend. It makes him happy that Ritter might feel the same. He likes to think he really lucked out in the friend department. Ritter and Gallo seem like solid people so he hopes they feel the same. 

Throughout all their conversation, all the tomfoolery and chowing down on deep dish, Matt notices that Gabby stays fairly quiet the whole time. Even as they start to pack up after one too many dirty stares from the other people quietly eating in the restaurant, her nerves are still there, her body tense. The group walks around campus for a while as the sun sets and the stars start poking the sky. They swing on lamp posts and jump around, and Kelly laughs as Stella hops on his back, giving her a piggyback until they reach Matt and Gabby’s apartment building. Their place also happens to be one floor up from Stella and Kelly’s place, which is why they stop there first. 

“Alright, it’s been fun everybody!” Stella’s words are slurred together, still on the natural high she normally gets when being around their friend group for extended periods of time. “We’ll see you all for our weekly potluck next Friday to end the first week of classes. Our place this time. Hey new guys, you two free next Friday?” 

“You’re inviting us to your potluck?” Gallo looks shocked, and Matt doesn’t think they’ve been invited to events like this all that much. It’s sort of adorable, how innocent they are. Matt misses the time where they were all like that. 

“Yeah, of course,” Kelly nods. “I mean, it’s not for another two weeks, but unless you guys decide on the first week that university isn’t for you then I don’t see why you guys can’t join in.” Kelly looks around at their friends, all of whom nod in agreement. 

Gallo and Ritter look at each other, smiling giddily. The two guys, tight-knit, give each other a tiny knowing glance before Gallo responds for the both of them, “We’ll be there.” 

“Yay!” Sylvie hugs them both at the same time, causing everyone to laugh. Matt feels a sense of pride swelling in his chest at the two boys slowly being adopted into the group. 

“And Otis, no packaged ramen noodles this time, don’t be lazy,” Kelly quips. “If everyone else is going to break the bank for these dinners then so should you.” 

It gets a bitter laugh out of Otis, who shakes his head. “Real funny, Severide,” replies. “It’s not my fault that I can’t cook for shit. Nobody in my family can.” 

Joe pats him on the back comfortingly, albeit out of pity, and Ritter laughs, pointing out Gallo’s lack of culinary talent.

Their group dies down after that as Kelly and Stella head up to their apartment. Joe and Otis head back to their dorm, Ritter and Gallo following behind them to find their way to the new residences. Matt and Gabby are left with Sylvie on the pavement outside their apartment complex, and Gabby kisses Matt on the cheek as she heads up. “I’ll be right behind you,” he promises her. She doesn’t look back as she opens the door, gestures at him tiredly and slumps her way upstairs, clearly exhausted. Matt turns to Sylvie, who’s waiting to talk to him.

“How are you holding up?” Her brows furrow with that typical Sylvie Brett concern. It’s the same look that gave her the title of the mom friend, the hilarious but endearing worrying. 

“Are you checking up on me?” He chuckles a little as he asks the question, and his laughter makes the tension in his shoulders leave. 

“A little,” she admits, giggling. “I just- I know that comment earlier about the soulmates couldn’t have been fun. Especially with how close your birthday is.”

“I could ask you the same thing. You’re going to be the last of us to turn 21, I imagine the wait is making you pretty anxious.” Matt almost winces at the idea of having a birthday in November. She has a later birthday than any of them and, unlike Matt, is handling it like a champ. But she’s human, and she doesn’t have a boyfriend to check up on her when she gets anxious. Maybe it’s for the best, he thinks. Sticking with friends can be just as comforting. 

“Yeah,” Sylvie laughs dryly. “It’s been a rough summer. Joe and Otis have been keeping me preoccupied these past few months but it doesn't always help. Knowing what’s coming makes it so much less enjoyable, though. It feels so… suffocating, sometimes. What about you?” 

“I’m alright, really. This whole thing makes me nervous but honestly, I think Gabby’s taking it worse than I am. She’s been listening to the news like crazy.” 

“I’m sure once classes start again she’ll have that to distract her,” she consoles him. “Besides, I think everyone knows you two are going to be each other’s soulmates. Right?”

“I guess we’ll find out soon. I just wish there was a way I could reassure her that it’ll happen. She won’t talk to me about it all that much. I mean, I know what she’s thinking. At least I _think_ I do. But it hurts to know that there’s nothing I can do to help.” 

“Well if you ask me, just being there for her is enough. At the end of the day, you know and I know that she can get through just about anything. You know Gabby,” Sylvie chuckles, “she’s never met a thing worth asking help for.” 

“I know,” he laughs, smiling at the memories he has of her and her stubborn, headstrong moments. “Thanks, Sylvie. For everything.”

“Of course. Anytime.” She gives him a quick hug, pats him on the shoulder comfortingly, and then turns to go back to her apartment. Matt watches as Sylvie leaves, then heads back up to his apartment to check on Gabby. 

“Gabby?” When he gets back into his apartment, he looks around, confused, before finding Gabby crashed on their bed, already half-asleep. 

“Hi, babe,” she grumbles, her voice muffled by her face buried into a pillow. “I’m. So. Exhausted.”

“I know, it’s been a long day,” he sighs. “Hey, how did your thing with Professor Goodwin go?” 

“Uh… good. Very good. Great stuff ahead for me…” 

“That’s good.” He gently strokes her hair as she shifts around in the bed. She’s beautiful, even when she’s about to fall asleep. In the moment, he feels for her. For them. It hasn’t been easy for them, but Matt loves her. That much he knows; has known it since the second he kissed her sophomore year on the quad. “Do you know how much I love you?” 

“Mmm,” she mumbles, drifting off, “Love you too…” She falls asleep almost instantly after that. Matt kisses her on the forehead and then keeps stroking her hair, feeling the tiny rising and falling of her breathing. Her fatigue is contagious and, eventually, Matt becomes too tired to stay up any longer. 

He takes her shoes off for her, figures she’ll be fine to sleep in her clothes. He changes into his pajamas quietly, tucking her in and then crawling under the sheets with her. Falling asleep with her gives him that sweet, familiar feeling as he snuggles in close to her.

They’ll work it out. Matt knows it. He and Gabby have had hundreds of bumps in the road, this one can’t be any worse. Whatever happens, they’ll find a way to make things work. 

They always do. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sort of a long one, but some will be shorter or longer depending on what happens. I've also started keeping little campus news updates at the beginning of every chapter and I'll try and tie them in with the theme of the chapter. Whether I'll be able to come up with 24 remains to be seen, but I'll do my best. 
> 
> ALSO: since this is a soulmate fic about music, I was thinking about making a playlist for this fic? Let me know if that's something you guys would be interested in! (We're not getting a new episode until the 27th so I'll need something to keep me preoccupied anyway).

_“CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Effective immediately, musical clips will be prohibited in any senior projects or assignments. Email your teachers to inquire if there are other ways to earn extra credit.”_

The first day of school comes quickly. The weekend passes by slowly and everything finally starts up again, the lazy pace of summer picking up quickly. Matt had gotten nervous for the first day of classes and showed up to his first Advanced Construction class twenty minutes early. He had to work on his extra credit assignment for orientation outside the lecture room, waiting for the professor to arrive. It hadn’t been ideal, but it was the start of a new semester and Matt remains weirdly optimistic. Or maybe he’s just in denial about his birthday coming up on the weekend. Either way, he’s in a good mood. He doesn’t want to ruin it for himself. 

The only bummer Matt really notices is that he and Gabby don’t have any classes together. It’s expected, seeing as how their majors don’t overlap in the slightest, but it’s still disappointing. Granted, it would have been worse if he had classes with her, but her absence is almost equally as distracting. It makes him listen intently every night that week as she rants excitedly about her classes during dinner. In general, though, his classes are pretty great. He has an 8 am class on Wednesdays which will be a pain in the ass but other than that, his schedule is pretty balanced. He even has a class with Sylvie which makes him inexplicably happy. He fails to see how the theory of interior design helps him with his own degree, but the space for an elective is there so he takes it. And Sylvie has a way of making even the most boring classes seem fun. She takes super detailed, colourful notes, so he knows she’ll share them with him. The first few days of that class, she raves about her fancy highlighters constantly. It’s all the reassurance he needs that this class is going to be a breeze. Gallo and Ritter also hang out with the group excessively during the two weeks and even get added into the group chat text. Ritter takes his place as the quiet one and finds interest in Otis’s computer designing stuff while Gallo starts goofing off with Severide. The integration of the two— as Stella so lovingly calls them— _babies_ of the group happens swiftly and yet it feels so natural, like they were meant to be friends with them the entire time. That also adds to Matt’s good mood. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the semester is going to be good. Great, even. 

His bubbly mood manages to last the whole week. Monday goes by in a flash, then Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday, Matt feels completely blissful when Gabby stops checking the campus news channel. According to her, his good mood rubbed off on her. The special opportunity that Goodwin had talked to her about seems to have pulled through as well, and she hasn’t been able to stop talking about it. Matt doesn’t understand the logistics of it all, but it’s some kind of EA position for a freshman-level social work class that Gabby took years ago, and it might lead to some big thing at the end from what he understands. Honestly, he’s just happy to see her back to her regular self again, to the outgoing woman he fell in love with. Her mood seems good as far as he can tell, especially now that her classes are here. Sylvie was right about that, Matt realizes. Gabby’s always felt so connected to the work she does inside and outside of those classes, Matt knows that. Slowly, his life with Gabby plus the work that starts to come in from his classes both slowly ease him out of any stress about his birthday. By the time their first potluck of the year comes around, two days away from his 21st birthday, Matt hardly remembers that there’s something to be stressed out about in the first place… until he does. 

He’s walking out of his last class of the day, already halfway to the library. His heart is set on getting at least two good sources for his first paper, and he’ll see everyone at the potluck that night anyway, so he texts Gabby to let her know he won’t be back at their apartment before dinner. 

He sighs contentedly and enters the library. The smell of old wooden shelves is weirdly comforting and he starts rifling through the rows right away. There’s no specific book he’s looking for, and he had forgotten his library card so he needs to take pictures on his phone of all the info he’ll need for his bibliography. His phone is overflowing with pictures of text by the end of it which isn’t ideal for iCloud storage, but there isn’t much else he’ll need to download anyway. The whole process is weirdly calming though, leisurely flipping through pages of books and encyclopedias. The library has always been his favourite place here. It’s the place he feels most himself. It’s strange to his friends because he’s not a huge bookworm or anything, but he doesn’t have an explanation for it. It’s just his _place_. He gets lost in his work, lets himself lose track of time. Three shelves in, he checks his phone to see that three hours have passed. Missed texts from Gallo and Ritter thanking him again for letting them come to the potluck tonight, Joe asking for the secret ingredient to his mac n’ cheese, and Sylvie with the discussion questions from their class today. The clock on his phone blinks a solid 6:00. For some reason, it makes him smile. Losing track of time feels really good. It sends this calm peace washing over him, the introverted parts of him at ease. He’s making his way towards shelf number four when he feels Kelly’s elbow nudging at his ribs. “Casey! What’s up?” 

“I’m doing research. What’s up with you? No offense, but you haven’t picked up a book in years. I wasn’t even sure you could read,” he teases. 

“Ah, none taken. I’ll leave the reading to Stella. She’s the smart one out in the relationship anyway,” he chuckles. “Gabby said I could find you here. I just came by to make sure you didn’t forget about dinner tonight. And to tell you that if we had any doubts about you bringing those two kids into our group, those doubts would definitely be gone by now.” 

“I’m assuming tryouts went well, then?” Matt smiles when he remembers tryouts were today, but his smile turns into a mental note to ask to go to the bathroom tonight when Severide starts rambling about the football team. Matt loves football and loves his best friend, but Severide gets intense about it to an alarming degree. It’d be hilarious if it weren’t happening _all the damn time_. 

“Dude, they went great. That Gallo kid is a killer left tackle. He’s going to be my number 2 guy this year, I can already tell.” 

“You’re getting that weird, crazy look in your eyes again,” Matt snorts, pointing at Kelly’s face. “It’s upsetting the locals.” 

“Hey, I’m excited about this season, sue me.” He raises his hands defensively, laughing his head off. “Besides, it’s your fault. You introduced us to Gallo and Ritter, so you got nobody to blame but yourself for this one, dumbass. Thank you, for that.”

“Asshole,” Matt mumbles in response. 

“What was that?” 

“I said ‘that’s cool’,” he replies. He’s lying through his teeth and Kelly knows it, throwing fake punches at Matt’s stomach as their pace picks up. They’re still goofing off and laughing, but all of a sudden, Matt stops dead in his tracks. He doesn’t know why, but staring at the shelves at shelves of books as they walk to the other end of the library sends him snapping back into the same stressful spiral he’s been in for the past few months. It all comes back to him, the reality he’s been blissfully ignorant of, the dreaded day coming up. 

“Holy shit.” 

“What?” 

“I’m turning 21 on Sunday,” he explains, drifting off into a trance as he stares at the bookshelves. 

“Dude, I know. We all know.” He laughs it off at first, but Matt’s still staring off into space and Severide’s expression turns worried. “Hey, are you alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he shakes it off, finally snapping out of it. “I just… I’ve been going through this whole week so blind. I thought things were just on the up this week but I’ve just been ignoring it.” 

“Ignoring what?” 

“All of my problems. Mine and Gabby’s. I mean, my birthday’s in two days and I haven’t thought about it once today. Hell, I haven’t thought about it since the first day of Frosh Week. I don’t know, I guess I’ve just been in denial the whole week and now it’s finally hitting me. I’m turning 21 in two days…” 

“September 12th. Again, I know,” Kelly nods.

“Am I a horrible person for just completely ignoring that?” He blurts it out before he can think about it. “I mean, I haven’t checked in with Gabby about it for so long. Not that she’s all that chatty about it anyway, but…” his voice trails off, lost in his thoughts of guilt. 

“Dude,” Severide starts, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder, “you are _not_ a horrible person. Cut yourself some slack, this soulmate shit is stressful. Wanting to be happy doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you human.” 

“You think so?” 

“I know so.” He gives Matt’s shoulder a pat. “You and Gabby are going to be fine, man.”

“Thanks. I hope so. She’s been through so much in her life— and you have too, I mean. With, you know, Shay and everything.” Matt watches as Severide’s face changes, the ghost of his grief tugging at his expression, knows it’s a sensitive topic. “I just want to make her happy.” 

Kelly and Gabby have known each other since high school. They had been super tight, but the only person they were closer with than each other was Leslie Shay. Shay was one of those people you don’t even need to know to _know_ . From Severide and Gabby’s description, Leslie Shay was blunt and loyal and _real_ ; she was everything good in Severide’s life up until then. Gabby had opened up about Shay’s death when they first started dating, and again around the time they moved in together when it reached the two year anniversary of Shay’s passing. If anything, it tears Severide up even more than it does Gabby. He and Shay were practically inseparable. Being one of the only lesbian girls in their small-town high school, it meant Severide didn’t have a chance with her so, naturally, a friendship blossomed. And Gabby, ever the social justice warrior, made sure all of the homophobes were put in their place. Matt had helped her frame the detention slip she had gotten junior year of high school for punching some homophobic asshole in the face when they first moved in together a year ago. The three of them were pretty solid, but they were torn apart as quickly as they came together senior year of high school. All that Matt knows is that the three of them were at some crazy rager. Severide had gotten in a fight with her and had left in a huff, Shay had followed him and Gabby had gotten lost in the crowd. And then, before he or Gabby knew it, a drunk Leslie Shay was getting in her car to find Severide. 

The car had crashed in under five minutes.

Matt knows Gabby has her scars. Their whole group has been through so much— as a group _and_ as individuals— and If he’s being honest, he has scars of his own too. A dead dad is enough trauma to last him a lifetime. But his father was sort of a jackass; Leslie Shay wasn’t. Shay was like golden light in human form, as far as he knows. Gabby and Severide both miss her a lot, even if they don’t let it on all the time. 

“Matt, look at me.” Severide’s voice snaps him out of his train of thought, his grip on Matt’s shoulder tightening. “Gabby and I… we lost Shay. She was our best friend. But I got you now, man, and so does Gabby. She knows that.” 

“Thanks, Kelly.” Seveide’s arm wraps around to Matt’s back and pulls him in for a hug. It’s weirdly emotional and intimate for someone as emotionally stunted as Severide, which just seems to make the moment all the more important. Matt knows it’s tacky to say that the bonds you make in college will carry with you for the rest of your life, but he thinks it’s applicable in this situation.

“Come on,” Severide clears his throat, patting Matt’s back. “We can’t get all emotional like this. People will think someone’s just died.” 

“Shut up, you’re ruining the moment,” he jokes, laughing into his shoulder before pulling away from the hug. 

“ _You_ shut up.” He knows Kelly is joking, but hears him sniffle quietly and knows that their conversation means more to him than he lets on. “Come on, I’ll drive. We have to get to this potluck. Plus, I left potato salad in my car so if we don’t leave soon my car is going to smell like ass for a week.” 

“You left your potato salad in your car?! Why didn’t you lead with that?” 

“I don’t know, but it’s nice to know that you care so deeply about my potato salad.” 

“Yeah, because it’s the only decent thing you know how to cook,” Matt quips back. The two of them laugh, making their way to Severide’s car as he floors the gas pedal and speeds back to their apartment. Matt doesn’t really think it’s necessary considering the fact that they only live two blocks away from the University, but he suspects that Severide is just getting anxious to see Stella and, almost more importantly, _really hungry_. 

They reach their apartment complex in record time thanks to Severide. Matt goes to press the 8th-floor button but has to stop his usual instinct and press the 7th-floor button instead, where Stella and Kelly live. 

They walk in through the front door to the sounds of laughter and conversation.

“Hey! You guys made it!” Gallo calls out, a goofy grin spread across his face. Ritter waves, mirroring the same grin. Matt smiles, satisfied that they seem to really be in their element when they’re with the group. 

Stella really went all out this week, starting the year’s first weekly dinner with a bang. Matt looks around the room, the regular light sources replaced by candles and lamps. It gives the room a dim glow, and Matt can immediately tell which candles are the lavender scented ones that he helped Kelly pick out for Stella last Christmas. It takes him back to their very first potluck, back at the end of their first year when they started to come together as friends and decided that they needed a way to keep in touch through their increasingly busy schedules. Their friends are spread out around the room occupied with different, completely chaotic things. Joe and Otis are pulling their dish out of the oven while bickering, Stella’s whacking them across the head with an oven mitt while ducking at any retaliation, and Gallo seems to be arm wrestling with Ritter. Sylvie and Gabby, being quite possibly the only sane people in the room, are sitting on the big couch and talking among themselves. Gabby perks up at the sight of Matt, walks over to meet him halfway between the front door and the couch. Severide heads towards Stella, Sylvie waves at him before moving to the kitchen with Joe and Otis, and Matt lets his shoulder bag fall off his shoulder, giving Gabby a chaste kiss. “Hi, sorry I took so long. I hope we’re not late.” 

“Oh no you’re fine,” she shrugs. “Joe and Otis were just finishing reheating their potluck contribution anyway. I think they tried to replicate your homemade mac n’ cheese. I don’t know what they were thinking, it will never be as good as yours.” 

“That’s because they don’t know the secret ingredient,” he teases. 

“Even I don’t know this secret ingredient of yours. I am your girlfriend, after all. I won’t tell anyone else, I promise.” 

“No!” He laughs as he watches her become more and more indignant, more desperate. 

“Come on! Pleeeease?” 

“No way,” he chuckles. Gabby leans her head on Matt’s chest, sighing in defeat. “Hey, uh, on another note... can we talk later?” 

Gabby blinks at the sudden change in subject. “Yeah, sure. What’s this about?” 

“Just about my birthday. I mean, it’s in two days. I just want to talk about it, make sure we’re alright.” 

“Ok, yeah sure,” she nods. “We’ll talk after.”

“Great.” He smiles down at her. The smiles she returns still seems tense, but he figures she’s just nervous about his birthday, and that’s a sentiment she can relate to. 

“Hey, Stella, why exactly did you bring out all of our candles?” Matt walks over to the kitchen with Gabby as Severide calls out to Stella, who places cutlery on each of the nine table spots. It’s crammed, having to fit nine people at one IKEA table, but the potlucks are always a blast no matter how disastrous they are. 

“I just thought it would be nice to have some, you know, _ambiance_. After all, this is our senior year, folks. It’s the last first potluck of our college lives!” 

“Aww,” Sylvie coos. “You’re going to make me cry.” 

“And let me guess, Stella. You figured now would be the perfect time to spice these weekly dinners up and burn your apartment down,” Gabby teases. 

“She’s right,” Severide jumps in again. “This has to be a fire hazard or something.” 

“What do I look like, a firefighter? I just wanted to make it look nice,” Stella pouts. “Besides, we all use way too much electricity anyway. Candles are better for the environment, and they smell nice.” 

Severide laughs. Matt can tell Severide wants to say something, but Otis interrupts him before he can. “Okay guys, we’re done. Food’s ready.” 

“Ok everyone, come on. Dig in!” Stella motions wildly for everyone to come to the table. And what Stella says, people do. Matt takes a spot beside Gabby, who sits across from Sylvie. Joe and Otis sit next to Sylvie, and Gallo sits on Matt’s other side with Ritter glued at his side. Stella and Kelly take their spots at the head of their table, with Gabby and Matt on their left and Sylvie and Otis on their right. 

Joe and Otis wince at their mac n’ cheese, nervously watching in their chairs as people lean over to take some. Matt almost doesn’t, but figures he should be a gracious competitor and takes a spoonful. The tangled mess of arms reaching around and across the table disorients him but he manages to get a little bit of every dish. Sylvie makes a killer lemon meringue pie (she coined the dessert slot ages ago for their potlucks), Severide sets his potato salad down on the table, his and Gabby’s chili is always a classic at their potlucks. Blake decides to bring PB&J sandwiches, claiming it as an homage to how he and Ritter were accepted into the friend group in the first place. Ritter blushes but calls him out on his bullshit. He brought some sort of seafood paella and it looks pretty awesome. Matt looks at the options on his plate, goes in for the first bite of mac n’ cheese, and chokes it up immediately. Everyone else is doing the same when he looks up at them, laughing as Joe and Otis huff in defeat. 

“What the hell did you do to my mac n’ cheese?” He wipes his face with a napkin and reaches for a glass of water that, in the chaotic layout of the table, he only _thinks_ is his. 

“We tried everything man,” Joe groans. “I don’t know how you do it.” 

“I don’t think Matt burns his mac n’ cheese, for one,” Sylvie chips in, coughing at the bitter aftertaste of the charred noodles. 

“Whose side are you on here?” Otis crosses his arms in mock protest.

“Sorry,” she laughs, throwing a small knowing glance at Matt. They try and hold back their laughter as they look back down at their plates. 

Severide switches the conversation to Gallo’s new position on the football team pretty soon after that. They start sharing stories from their glory days in high school football, and everyone groans, breaking off into separate conversations of their own while eating. Joe and Otis start telling Gallo and Ritter about a kegger they’re throwing tomorrow night, which Matt thinks is stupid because, thanks to the nonstop blasting of campus news, he knows is illegal now. Stella starts a conversation with Sylvie and Ritter about some interesting coalitions being formed by last year’s graduates, and Gabby joins in for a bit. Before he knows it, they’re almost finished dinner as Ritter and Stella tap out first, too full to keep eating. 

Matt doesn’t know if he’s purposely keeping his mouth stuffed with food to keep quiet or if he’s just really hungry, but he finds himself not talking much all throughout dinner. Gabby’s arm is pressed up against his, tense and stiff. Sylvie seems to notice the tension almost as quickly as Matt does, and tries to engage in small talk with him and Gabby. “So did you guys see that they’re taking To Kill A Mockingbird out of the library? Apparently, it’s ‘not educational material’. I swear, it’s like leisurely reading doesn’t even exist anymore,” she sighs. 

“Yeah, I noticed that,” he replies. “I just got back from the library, actually. Their selection is dropping like crazy.” 

“I know! Man, it’s rough. Maybe we should organize like a book drive or something. People could donate their old books to the school and we could help the librarians put on barcodes and everything.” The gears in Sylvie’s head start to spin, making Matt smile a little. Being a total sucker for planning events comes in the Sylvie Brett package for being the mom friend. Gabby warned him freshman year since she was the first to meet Sylvie, and he learned pretty quickly after that. 

The thought of Gabby makes him realize she hasn’t said a word, so he looks over to see her next to him, jabbing at her food. He can tell she’s distraught, feels the tension still very much present in her arms and in the way she’s clenching onto her fork like it’s a weapon. His heart suddenly aches as all of the guilt from earlier comes rushing back to him. His hand flies to her upper back, rubbing it gently. “Hey. Are you okay?” 

“No!” Gabby suddenly tosses her cutlery down, and the clanging of utensils on top of her small outburst makes a hush fall over the table. Her eyes immediately widen like a deer in headlights, but she looks down at her lap, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t keep pretending like everything’s ok. I’m not you, okay? It can’t always be sunshine and rainbows.” Her words come out all in one breath. Matt doesn’t know where this is coming from. It’s a weird, unexpected reaction and it worries him. Maybe his worst fears from earlier were coming true, contrary to what Severide had said. 

“Ok, ok,” he assures her. He keeps rubbing her back, his hand rising and falling with her deep breathing. “Is this about the soulmate thing? I know I’ve sort of been in denial about it this week, but you stopped listening to the news so much and figured you were doing the same. But that’s why I wanted to talk about it after this. I mean, come on, Gabby, it’s not like you talk about it that much anyway. Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” 

“I don’t know, I just- I was scared, okay? I didn’t want to talk about it at first. I thought I could deal with that on my own. But then you just started acting like it didn't exist and it freaked me out. So I want to talk about it. Now.” From the corner of his eye, Matt can see Gallo and Ritter shrinking in their seats and the rest of the group starts to clear the plates off of the table. Stella and Severide’s apartment is tinier than Matt and Gabby’s so there isn’t much space to sneak off to, but it’s everyone’s attempt at giving them as much space as they can. Matt feels his cheeks go hot at the idea of his friends all watching this spat, especially Gallo and Ritter, who must be freaked out and confused out of their minds. Matt can't blame them, or even Gabby; he can really only blame himself for this. He definitely hasn't been facing his issues head-on this week. 

“Can we—” he stops, looking around Stella and Kelly’s apartment. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?” 

Severide stands up, pats Matt on the back as he walks past the two of them and points to his bedroom. “You can use our room if you want,” he offers, his voice calm and level. Stella nods in agreement from her spot at the table. 

Gabby looks around the room, suddenly taking in the scene of their friends exchanging worried glances. She sighs, looks down at her feet. “Yeah. Thanks, Kelly. Um, keep eating, everybody,” she addresses the rest of the gang. She flashes a weak, remorseful smile before she takes Matt by the hand and drags him into Severide and Stella’s room. 

She continues as Matt closes the door behind him. “I just- I can’t pretend like _‘it’_ isn’t in two fucking days. Like our entire relationship doesn’t hang in the balance.” 

“Woah. Woah,” he laughs a little, finding the idea ridiculous. “Our entire relationship is not hanging in the balance. Gabby, my birthday is only going to tell me what I already know: that you and I belong together.” 

“Yeah, I know. I just… hate that we have soulmates in the first place. The fact that at this age, the universe tells you who you’re going to spend the rest of your life with causes way too much stress over something that should be your own choice. I don’t need the universe trying to tell me what to do,” she scoffs. 

“I don’t know…” he begins pensively, “I think it’s kind of nice.” 

“Nice?” 

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a nice idea. Getting to have that one person who is just meant for you.” 

“But what does that say about free will?” 

“Hey, it’s not always a romantic soulmate. I’d like to think that we still have some say in the matter.”

It’s not like they haven’t had the soulmates conversation before. He’s heard her take on it, as well as everyone else’s. They’d all gone around during a study session first-semester last year and shared their stances on the great soulmate debacle, some more adamant on their opinions of it than others. He doesn’t know why she’s so taken aback hearing his opinion on it now, but she is and he hates how offended she looks by it. That look in her eye almost makes him feel guilty for not hating the idea of having a soulmate. It stings. 

“You’re serious?” She shakes her head bitterly.

“How are you surprised by this? We had this conversation last year, you knew how I feel about it. This isn’t anything new.” 

“I don’t know, Matt,” Gabby sighs. “I just… it’s made me so anxious these past few months. That’s what this whole soulmate thing does to people, it just chews them up and spits them out.” 

“Love doesn’t do that,” he counters. 

“You said it yourself, soulmates aren’t always romantically linked together. If they were, maybe it wouldn’t make everyone so miserable.” 

“Ok, well I’m sorry I’m not miserable enough, Gabby. I’m sorry that I believe in _us_. Is that what you want to hear?” 

“No! No, I don’t want to hear that,” she hisses. “How can you think I don’t have faith?” 

“You’re worried, Gabby. Just admit it! I know you fancy yourself Wonder Woman, and you never let on how worried you are, but I can tell. Watching the campus news incessantly, getting angry whenever people mention it. You’re obviously scared. Which means a part of you doesn’t think we’ll be soulmates.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never thought about the big ‘What if’? What if I put in those stupid plastic earbuds on Sunday and blast a song and you can’t hear it from across campus? That hasn’t occurred to you at all?” 

“Of course it has! But apparently, unlike you, I believe in us. You should try it sometime.” He’s roaring on and on until he’s done talking, and everything goes quiet. It’s a sound that’s quieter than silence, even. It washes over them so suddenly. 

Her lips press together tightly, nodding bitterly again. “Wow. So that’s what you think of me.” Matt opens his mouth but realizes he has no idea what to say. “See I knew you’d react this way, that’s why I didn’t tell you how scared I was. Because not everyone is you, Matt. We can’t just talk about our feelings and then go about our day as if that solves them. And the sooner you learn that, the better.”

She steps back, nearly bumping into the bed. For a minute, he thinks maybe Gabby’s right about soulmates being designed to make people miserable. Matt’s not normally so cynical, but fighting with the woman he loves does that to him.

“I’m going back upstairs to our place,” she continues. “Tell everyone I’m sorry.” Before he can argue, she pushes past him and storms out of the room. Matt feels the bitter sting of the fight pressing against his heart, his eyes shut tight. He doesn’t bother to look behind him at the scene of her leaving the apartment. Getting in a fight with his girlfriend was not what he had expected to happen tonight, and looking out at the wreck he’s caused is going to hurt like hell. Potluck night is a sacred night for their group, a little tradition forged in the idea that they could forget all their problems and debt and coursework at the front door. A night where they had to, where they were forced to put aside any drama and come together as friends. He has to face the music eventually though and laughs at the irony of the expression before opening the bedroom door. It takes every ounce of willpower he has to walk out of that room, mustering up just enough courage to see what’s happened. 

The first thing he notices is the front door swinging wide open. His friends are gathered around the table, some sitting and some standing. The only one not near the table is Stella, who quietly washes dishes at the counter with Severide. Heated whispers are passed back and forth until they see him walking out of their room. Nobody’s trying to ignore him now, and all eyes are on Matt. The silence is unbearable. 

Matt sighs as utter humiliation adds to his hurt. It had been a perfectly good night until he’d asked Gabby to talk later. He could have waited to mention it to her but _nope_. He just set something off in her, bubbling until it exploded. _Way to go, Matt_. He feels so shitty about the whole thing, and there’s nothing he can do or say to fix it. “I… I’m sorry about that, guys. I didn’t mean to… well, it won’t happen again, I promise.” 

“It’s okay man,” Kelly reassures him. Everyone goes back to normal after that, by demand of Kelly’s pointed glares. Otis and Joe move to turn on the old Wii that Kelly and Stella have in their apartment, and the sounds of Wii tennis soon drown out any kind of awkward silence that had once been there. They throw glances at each other between serves, still worried, but ultimately give Matt the space he needs. Matt stands there in the middle of their apartment, feeling like an idiot, but Kelly puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him back towards the kitchen.

He stares off into space, digesting everything from his fight with Gabby. Even the memory of the whole interaction makes him feel cold and lonely, but then he feels another hand on his shoulder. It’s too small to be Severide’s hand, and when Matt feels the warm hand pressing gently against his collarbone, he looks up and finds that the hand is Sylvie’s. “Hey there. Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” he replies, shaking his head to wake himself up a little. “I should, uh… I should probably get going.” He sniffles, moves to the counter near Stella, and grabs his empty pot once filled with chili. 

Sylvie moves too, walks behind him to the fridge, and takes out a plate wrapped in tin foil. When he turns back around to leave, Sylvie’s waiting for him with the plate and extends it out to him. “Lemon meringue pie. For the road. I saved you a piece, I know it’s your favourite.” 

It’s just a slice of pie. Stupid, delicious, lemon meringue pie. Only at the moment, it feels like so much more than that. It’s thoughtful and comforting, something so… Sylvie. Even when her friends are fighting, she’s there for anyone who needs it. Matt realizes that Sylvie might just be a better person than he and Gabby combined. He smiles, taking the slice of pie. “Thank you. I know it’s just pie,” he lets out a watery chuckle, “but… thanks.” 

“Of course,” she nods. “Consider it an early birthday present. Part two of the gift will come Sunday at the pa—”

“Sylvie,” Kelly interrupts her, his voice lowered to a hissy whisper. “Shut up!” Kelly almost never calls Sylvie by her full name. He usually just calls her Vie because he knows she hates it, so Matt knows it must be something serious. 

“Right, uh, soon. If I see you, that is. Because we might not, you know… anyway, yeah.” She laughs nervously, waiting for Matt to say something. 

Matt isn’t stupid, he knows they’re hiding something. But his brain is only registering half of the information being thrown its way now and quite frankly, he’s too exhausted to care about whatever it is. So he lets it slide and doesn’t say a word. “Ok then. Anyway, thanks again.” 

“Anytime, buddy,” Severide responds before she can. They both lead him out of the door. 

He walks around the hallways of the apartment complex for a while, and takes the stairs instead of the elevator. When he finally reaches his front door, his muscles tense up and he freezes. His fist is hovering over the door, waiting to twist the metal knob. Jesus, why is it so hard for him to open a damn door? 

Matt can’t do it. Not yet. He just needs more time to… to think. Before he can stop himself, he bolts back towards the staircase, sitting down on the first step and placing his tupperware and slice of pie next to him. Letting himself zone out again is easy, and he feels at peace in his own head thinking about what went wrong. 

A part of him feels guilty and it makes him mad. This isn’t his fault, or so Kelly says. Maybe it is. He doesn’t know. All he knows is that he’s mad at Gabby and yet somehow, he misses her so damn much. She’s less than 100 feet away, probably sitting in the apartment wondering where he is, and yet he’s never felt so far away from her. It’s awful. 

“Hey.” Matt hears a voice after a few minutes, looks up expecting it to be Gabby. Instead, he’s met with the same brown-haired rebel he met two weeks ago. Blake Gallo stands there, his hands stuck awkwardly in his pockets. “Am I interrupting?”

“No, I’m just sitting here, you know… thinking. How did you know I’d be here?” 

“I didn’t,” he explains. “I wanted to see how you were doing so Severide gave me your apartment number. I just felt like taking the stairs.” 

“Oh.” Matt doesn’t really know what to say after that, looks down at his pie awkwardly. 

“I’m an orphan.” The words come tumbling out of Gallo’s mouth awkwardly. It’s a weird confession during an even weirder interaction, but it’s still news to Matt. 

“What?” 

“I’m an orphan,” he repeats. “When I was 10, my house burned down. My parents, my little sister… Well, I was the only survivor. And I’m not trying to throw myself a pity party or anything, you don’t have to say sorry or offer me condolences or anything like that. I just thought you should know. I probably should tell everyone else too but I figured it was more of a fifth week of friendship topic.” 

“Okay...” he nods, unsure of where Gallo’s taking this whole conversation. 

“This has to do with that, I swear,” Blake starts. He sits down next to Matt on the staircase, his elbows pressing against his knees. “What I’m trying to say is: I never had a family after that. I went into foster care, to people who didn’t care about me all that much. I was never all that popular in school either; I got into fights with nearly every asshole bully in my school. Got suspended more times than I can count, mostly for Ritter. He doesn’t stick up for himself as much as he should, you know? He’s too nice. So I just started looking out for him. For the two of us. And for a while, that was all I had. Until I met you.” 

“Me?” 

“Yeah. I mean, you just welcomed us into your friend group without giving it a second thought. And it’s only been a few weeks, I know that. We still have a lot we don’t know about each other, and clearly there’s a lot of history between the group that we weren’t a part of. But hanging out with you guys… it’s the closest thing I’ve had to family in a while.” Matt feels undeniably moved by his whole speech. Hearing about Gallo’s story, about everything he and Ritter have been through as friends, it makes his heart swell. They have just as many scars as the rest of the group. Gallo’s invisible scars remind him of his own, to a scary degree, but it makes Matt more protective of Gallo. He decides that he will have this dude’s back no matter what now. And, for the first time this year, Matt sees in himself what Lockwood sees in him. It feels good, distracts him momentarily from the Gabby conundrum. “Ritter feels the same,” Blake continues. “So, I don’t know. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, well. Families fight. They scream and they cry and say things they don’t mean. But I mean, at the end of the day, they’re your family. And Gabby is a part of that.” 

“Yeah, she is.” He thinks about all of the memories they have together: of meeting for the first time, first dates, first ‘I love you’, when they moved in together. But as he looks back, all of those memories are intertwined with memories of the group. Them and their friends, together. Unpacking moving boxes when they first got the apartment, Severide tying his tie for him before his and Gabby’s first date, the way Sylvie helped Gabby buy a gift for him for their one year anniversary. There is no him and Gabby without the group. They’ve all been there in one way or another. Maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. Maybe they really are a family. “Ah man,” Matt sighs. “I really screwed this up, haven’t I? I just wanted to have some hope, and I totally botched it. Maybe Gabby’s right, maybe soulmates are just designed to make you miserable. 

“Nah,” Blake dismisses it. “I don’t know much about this soulmate thing, but I know _that’s_ not true. If it was that simple then people would just stop giving a crap.” 

“I guess they would, wouldn’t they?” Matt laughs a little, shaking his head. “Man,” he sighs. “I just hope Gabby and I can work past this. I love her. A lot.” 

“You will.” 

He does a double-take, blinking at Gallo. “How can you be sure?” 

“I don’t, I guess. I just know that one way or another, everything will work out for the better.” 

Matt nods pensively. “You’re a pretty smart kid, Blake.” 

“I’m not a kid,” Gallo protests.

“Don’t fight it,” Matt teases but changes quickly back to his serious demeanor. “But I’m glad to have you around. You and Ritter are nice dudes, everyone’s really happy to have you guys as friends.” 

Gallo nods appreciatively, flashing a crooked smile Casey’s way. “Thanks, man.” He then stands up, dusts the thighs of his jeans off. “I should get going. Ritter doesn’t have his license because he’s a terrible driver so he’s going to need a ride. I’ll, uh… I’ll see you soon then.”

“Yeah,” Matt nods. “See you soon.” 

Blake smiles, jogs down the steps and back to the seventh floor. Matt sits there for a while, allowing himself to really soak in Gallo’s advice. It gives him enough strength to eventually get up off the steps. Matt grabs his slice of pie and his tupperware, and heads up the steps back into the hallway of the eighth floor. Their apartment is waiting for him when he gets there. This time, his hand doesn’t hover over the doorknob for more than a second or two.

He’s still mad, still terrified, still upset. All of it. But as he twists the doorknob, he isn’t scared of facing it anymore. Whatever future is waiting for him and Gabby, whatever the universe has in store for them, he can handle it. 

The door swings open gently, and he walks into whatever is to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that Dawsey won't be dragged out for much longer guys!! I'm really trying to slowly but surely put the nail in the coffin of their relationship without disrespecting either of the characters, so when you read this just remember that I am not writing this with some weird agenda, I'm just trying to keep the story interesting. Hope you guys liked this chapter and once again, let me know what you're hoping to see next! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up right where Chapter 2 left off, just a head's up!   
> I'll also be posting Chapter 4 in a few days. I normally try posting one chapter a week, but this one's sort of a step backwards (you'll understand when you read it lol) so I figured I'd give you guys a little present hehe.

_ “CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Seminars about soulmates will now be offered on Fridays for freshman and sophomores. Take the opportunity to inform yourself and ask any questions you might have. Counselors are also available for those who are feeling any pressure surrounding soulmates, and can be found in the guidance office Monday through Friday.”  _

Matt walks into their apartment and can almost feel Gabby’s coldness from a mile away. 

“Hi.” 

“Hi.” Gabby’s sitting on their loveseat, going over notes from her classes. She stops working, but her eyes stay fixed on the coffee table as she puts her notebooks down. “I was just doing some work.” 

“I can see that.” He tries to act casual, puts his slice of pie in the fridge, and tosses the Tupperware in the sink. They’re both avoiding each other’s gaze, slowly easing into whatever spat they’re about to get into. 

“Yeah.” She bites her lip, finally looking up at him. She’s drained, her face pale with the same dark circles under her eyes that form whenever they fight. 

“Listen, Gabby, I’m really sorry about tonight. I never meant for it to turn out this way.” 

“I know,” she nods. 

“Okay, so… what now?” 

She bites her lip for a second time, her eyes filled with yearning. She wants to say something, he can tell.  _ Come on, _ he finds himself thinking.  _ Just say something. I know you can do it. Talk to me for once.  _

“I’m beat,” is what she decides to say. It fills Matt with disappointment. “Can we just… pick this up later? I know we have a lot to work through, but I don’t want to keep fighting. I just want to be with  _ you _ .” 

He sighs, letting the familiar disappointment wash over him. Knowing them, the people they are together, he knows it’ll be harder to talk about it if they wait any longer, but he’s just as exhausted as she is so he compromises. “Ok. Tomorrow, then.” 

Just like that, their fight is put on the back burner and Matt waits for Gabby to pack up her notes before joining him to go to bed. They brush their teeth in silence and crawl under the sheets together, Gabby falling asleep in Matt’s arms. Here, snuggled up in their tiny hole of an apartment, it’s safe. It’s familiar. The comfort puts his mind at ease. He lies there in bed, Gabby’s skin pressed gently against his and lets himself fall asleep to the slow rhythm of her breathing. 

Sleep brings him peace until he wakes up and realizes the aftermath of the wreck is still there. 

He wakes up before Gabby does, his arm numb and asleep from being under her the entire night. He’s still on his sleep schedule from orientation week and even with his alarm off, it’s hard to break the habit of waking up early. It feels drearier outside, the clouds coming in thick and blocking whatever sunlight would be coming in this early. It’s the first sign of true fall weather. Matt sighs. He’s going to miss the warm sunlight and humidity of summer. It takes him back to a simpler time when he and Gabby were spending their summer in between lounging around their apartment with their friends, working shifts for his job, and taking weekend trips to his old family cottage. The feeling of sand between his toes had annoyed him, but now that summer is gone-- now that he and Gabby aren’t in that fun, oblivious state anymore-- it’s a time he misses. A time when they were working towards something good. 

He wiggles his arm out from under Gabby and leaves the bedroom to fix himself some coffee. His phone is plugged in on the kitchen counter and he grumbles when it buzzes constantly, the ringer on silent mode and yet still making sound as it vibrates against the hard surface of the counters. Turning it on makes his eyes sting with that dry, morning feeling, and he rubs his eyes to wake himself up, still groggy and half-asleep. The buzzing comes from their friend group’s main group chat, and he wakes up to hundreds of notifications from all of his friends, talking about the regular weird crap they normally talk about. And, of course, about Otis and Joe’s kegger tonight. 

New Text Messages (99+): 

_ Joe: come on guys, we never get to throw the fun parties  _

_ Ritter: aren’t keggers illegal now or something? I heard it on the campus news the other week _

_ Blake: sounds like fun. count me in XD _ _   
  
_

_ Ritter: oh god, I’m going to have to look after you the whole night aren’t I? _

_ Blake: not if you decide to have some fun you won’t _

_ Otis: my dad’s got plenty of money to spare if we get busted but I doubt that’ll happen. That crazy campus security guard Hank is off-duty this week and none of the others care enough to bust up any parties lol  _

_ Stella: then count me in too :D _

_ Stella: and Sylvie, you better be coming with me  _

_ Sylvie: uhhhhh  _

_ Stella: pleeeeeease?  _

_ Sylvie: … ok fine. But only so you don’t get in trouble.  _

_ Stella: Let’s goooo! This is going to be so fun  _

Ok. So his friends are idiots. He figured that out years ago, it’s not much of a surprise to him. But he still groans at the idea of having to go to that party of theirs. Joe and Otis always come up with the craziest ideas, and none of them ever turn out all that well. This one has to be one of their worst ones yet, Matt thinks, and borders on illegal with the underage drinking and extra senior students there who will undoubtedly upset their soulmates. He texts them back to pass up on the offer, and tosses his phone onto the couch when he starts getting private messages from everyone asking how he’s doing. The constant reassurances that they aren’t mad-- that they’re on his side, even-- aren’t comforting either. Matt doesn’t know if he should feel relieved that they don’t hate his guts or guilty that they’re siding with him. He decides to let himself feel both, but he doesn't feel up to reading all of the messages quite yet. It’s too early to deal with their fight; that’s something he needs more energy for. 

It’s the weekend, and he doesn’t have any shifts at the construction company he works for until the afternoon, so he starts off on his coursework. It’s a Saturday morning, which makes it all the harder to focus, but he pushes through and glues himself onto the couch. His phone is there waiting for him, and he puts his notifications on mute while he looks through the pictures he took yesterday. He scribbles down as many notes as he can and looks for the Macbook Pro Severide had given him for his birthday last year in hopes of actually getting through a good portion of his assignment. The world might have felt like it stopped for him, but college waits for no one. College doesn’t care about soulmates, no matter what the faculty and guidance counselors say. 

Whether it’s his pre-birthday jitters or his fear of dealing with their fight that makes him work so hard on his assignment, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that something in him clicks almost instantly, even when he’s just waking up. He gets really into the zone after a while and hardly eats anything until lunchtime— which also around the time Gabby finally wakes up and stumbles out of the bedroom, fully dressed and showered. Matt is so focused on getting his work done at this point that he hardly notices her making her way to the kitchen to get some cereal. 

“Hey,” she mumbles, her mouth full of cereal. “Man, I slept in late. Is it already lunchtime?” 

“Mhm,” he replies absentmindedly, his attention still on the computer. The assignment is one he actually enjoys, just writing simple layout suggestions for a hypothetical property and the history behind features of the house. The keys of his laptop click rapidly as he tries to get as much done while he’s on a roll. Gabby watches him with amused bewilderment and lets out a small laugh. 

“You’re really in the zone aren’t you?” 

“Yep. I gotta finish as much as I can, I don’t have a lot of time for this assignment.” 

“So you don’t even have one minute to spare?” Out of the corner of his eye, Matt sees her looking at him coyly, but tries not to get distracted by Gabby and her beautiful, cocky ways. 

“Can’t,” he replies, “I only have four more days to finish this and I’m not really going to have time for this tomorrow.” He feels awkward bringing up the idea of a tomorrow so casually, but his focus on schoolwork is still razor-sharp so he brushes over it. “Hey, what’s a synonym fo—”

Matt’s question is cut short by Gabby snapping his laptop shut and leaning over the couch, cupping his chin with her hand and making his gaze meet hers. “What the hell was that for?” 

“Forget work for a few minutes,” she pleads. She doesn’t give him time to respond and instead closes the space between them, lets her hands move down to his chest, and her lips move to his neck. She keeps kissing his neck, knowing full well it’s driving him wild, before her lips move up to his upper neck and, eventually, to his ear. “Please?” She whispers it into his ear softly and again, it’s just. Gabby Dawson sure knows how to get her way. 

“Ok, ok,” he sighs. “I can’t do this for too long though. I’m working in two hours and I need to eat something before I go.”

“Copy that, Captain Rogers,” Gabby quips, her satisfied and triumphant smirk beaming. Captain Rogers is the colourful moniker given to him by their group of friends because apparently, he looks and acts like Captain America all the time. Matt doesn’t see it, but has heard the nickname one too many times to believe it’s a good thing. 

He succumbs to the temptation of Gabby, lets his mind drift away from work and onto thoughts of her. His hands fly to her waist and stabilize her as she moves her lips back down to his neck and he moves his to hers. It’s mind-numbingly blissful, and for a moment, he swears they’re transported back to his cottage during the summer without a care in the world. 

Then, just as quickly as the moment starts, it ends. 

Gabby’s pulled away first by the sounds of her phone ringing on their kitchen table, grumbling as she puts in her password. “Ugh, dammit. Hold that thought.” She kisses his cheek before leaving the couch to get her phone. The notifications from the group chat come rolling in, and she laughs at the messages from everyone. Then, she moves on to her emails and her reminders and eventually gets caught up chatting and emailing with professors, updating schedules and whatever it is she does on her phone. The next interruption ends up being from Matt, who checks the clock and goes back into work mode, realizing how little time he has left to eat and leave for work. 

His job isn’t exactly pristine. His childhood friend Andy has an uncle who owns a small construction planning company, so Matt was lucky enough to land a job with him. Even though it’s halfway across town and he does mostly temp work, the pay is nice though and he figures it’s a good thing considering its similarity to the profession he actually wants to get into. He also likes working when he has things on his mind. Matt had landed this job his senior year of high school, at a time where his dad had just passed away and left him with a swirl of complicated emotions, so eventually, Matt just associated his job with a time to work hard and think even harder. Not many people can say they actually don’t mind the work that they do, so he counts himself lucky and picks up as many hours as he can.

It’s already past noon though, which means he was supposed to leave about five minutes ago. “Hey, babe, I gotta get to work now.” He leaps up from the couch and presses a firm kiss onto Gabby’s cheek, feeling the creases in her cheek push into his lips when she starts to smile. “I’ll be back for dinner tonight.” 

“Well the only thing I have going on today is waiting for an email from Professor Goodwin about a new development in my position, so I’ll make us dinner tonight. And I am a killer cook, which means you better be home on time.” She smiles, feeling his arms wrap around her waist. “Promise?” 

  
“Promise.” He grabs a sweater and heads out the door, running to the bus station with the crisp hint of an autumn breeze stinging his cheeks. His job is in a small building halfway across town and, after doing the math last year, taking the bus is cheaper than the amount he’d spend on gas if he drove, so he tosses change into the compartment and heads to the back of the bus. 

Matt’s shift isn’t supposed to last as long as it does. He gets to work and does the usual grunt work for the construction crew, but during the last half hour of his shift, after a million other exhausting things, his boss comes up to him. “Casey,” he calls out, “We need all hands on deck for the planning of this new development. You up for the job? It’ll only be a few extra hours, I promise.” 

His brain is screaming at him not to take it. He’s already spent too much time here and is eager to get home and hash things out with Gabby. But as much as he loves his girlfriend, he likes living with a roof over their heads even more. The extra pay would be nice, not to mention that it’d make up for the day off he requested tomorrow for his birthday. It’s also an opportunity that might not come around again, so he nods. “Ok, sure.” Andy’s uncle shakes his hand as he accepts the offer, leading Matt into their main office to look over the details. For once, Matt’s actually doing work that feels important to him, that reminds him of why he’s choosing the major that he chose. Andy’s uncle is a good boss, ends up enjoying some of his ideas, and it feels good to feel important. Doing something he genuinely enjoys distracts him from the ticking time bomb of a fight that’s going to be waiting for him when he gets home, and so he dives in again. Really, he should know better than to let himself get into these productive trances that almost always end up poorly, but he can’t think of anything that could go wrong this time so he curls up into his own mind and focuses hard on the task at hand The time flies by and, just like the library, he gets lost in his work and loses track of the world, until the extra few hours are up and he’s dismissed by his boss and everyone packs up to leave. 

The majority of his coworkers are scrappy, white, middle-aged men who probably listen to Bruce Springsteen more than Severide, which is saying something. It’s not unexpected, and Matt had found them a little intimidating at first, but he had learned to tolerate them. They’re in the middle of some mindless chat in the elevator when Matt realizes he had forgotten to text Gabby about the extra shift he had picked up. His phone lights up with missed calls and texts from everyone. “Shit.”

“What’s up with you?” One of his coworkers asks him, the guys in the elevator looking at him with puzzled expressions. 

“I forgot to tell my girlfriend I took the extra hours tonight. Fuck,” he swears under his breath. He hears whistling from the older men, teasing him for being whipped over Gabby. The urge to punch his idiot coworkers is only overpowered by his sudden race to get home. He rolls his eyes and runs out of the elevator as soon as the door opens, pushing past his coworkers and other people on the street to get to the bus stop. The bus ends up being ten minutes late either way, and Matt finds himself fidgeting anxiously as the bus slowly rolls back to his apartment. He sits there on the bus and sends her message after message, apologizing profusely. She doesn’t respond all that well as she replies with one-word texts, and rightly so. By the time he steps off the bus, it’s getting dark out and the lamp posts on the street next to their building are already lighting up. He’s practically panting from running so fast as reaches his front door and stumbles in. Sweat is rolling down the side of his brow, his chest rising and falling as he sees the sight of Gabby sitting at their kitchen table, her lips pursed. The dishes from the dinner she’d made lie in the sink, soaking in water as he eyes them from the other end of the small kitchen.“You’re back.” 

The only light in the apartment is the overhead light in the kitchen giving a dim glow to Gabby’s disappointed face. Yikes. If he thought last night was bad, this feels even colder. The guilt that originally pushed his adrenaline and sent him speeding home now just washes over him. It’s a really crappy feeling, letting her down like this. “I am so sorry. I know you must have been worried about me and I said we’d talk about this afternoon and- I’m just so, so sorry. But I picked up extra shifts and--” 

“Yeah I know, you told that to me,” she interrupts him. “Along with your million other texts.” Her arms are crossed, lying loosely on the table.  _ Ok _ , he thinks. So they’re doing this now. Right off the bat. At possibly the shittiest timing, when he’s just entered the door after a long day.  _ Figures _ . “I made stir fry out of leftover groceries. The rest is in the fridge, in case you were wondering what you missed.” 

“I… I’m sorry.” 

“I know,” she sighs. “But... I don’t know, Matt. You’ve always told me when you'd be working late before. I don’t mind that you picked up the extra shifts, I really don’t. But you knew I wanted to talk about our fight last night. I know you’ve been in a weird place lately and so have I, but you’ve always been able to let me know where you were. And bailing on this one thing I wanted isn’t fair.”

Matt knows what she’s talking about. He can feel it too. Ever since the summer, he’s been way too eager to jump into any work, school or otherwise, that he can find. It’s like he can feel himself retreating into himself when his world starts to get too stressful for him, and with his birthday hours away now, it’s given him every reason to go into these trances. It’s not unusual for him- he’s a lot more introverted than Gabby is, after all, but if he’s being honest with himself, he’s been pulling away from her too much for his own liking. The habit is one he knows isn’t healthy and makes him feel bad for hurting Gabby, but she’s also the reason why he’s been doing it so much which leaves him confused. He loves her so much, but things have been so tense lately and so… different. All he wants to do is hit rewind over and over until he can go back to a time when they were happy. The start of the semester and their approaching birthdays have ruined that for them. And now, he’s standing there and listening to her get up on her high horse as he takes his jacket off, and all he can feel in the moment is anger. “Nothing about this is fair, Gabby,” he huffs, raking a sweaty hand through hair. “You can’t just decide when and where we get to talk about things and when we don’t. I mean, come on, how is  _ that  _ fair? It’s exhausting.”

His words hit hard, but her offended look is quickly replaced with snippiness. “I didn’t mean to snap at dinner last night. Believe me, I feel awful about doing that in front of our friends. But this? This just feels like you’re running away from me. I can’t take it.” 

“What about you then, huh? God, you’ve been running away for the past three months, Gabby. And I didn’t realize it until this semester started, but even when you  _ want  _ to talk about soulmates, you shut me out. I’m in this, Gabby. I’m all in.” He throws his jacket onto their sofa, sighing angrily. “I told you before that not everything has to change if we don’t want it to. I don’t care if you’re my soulmate or not—”

“But I do,” she exclaims, desperate. “I  _ do _ care. I need us to be soulmates, Matt. I want that. A hell of a lot more than you do, from the looks of it.” 

“I’m doing the best I can,” he pleads. 

“Well so am I,” she protests. 

“Yeah, and how’s that working out so far?” The sting of his own rhetorical question surprises him. Normally, he’s not so icy and snippy during their fights, but he’s exhausted and it just slips out. 

“You know what? I’m tired of this. I’m going.” Gabby moves to grab her coat and her keys and Matt scoffs in disbelief. “If you decide to stop being a dick, I’ll be at Joe and Otis’s kegger. And if not… well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then for your birthday.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re actually going to that thing.” 

“Yes, I’m going to ‘that thing’ _.  _ Joe and Otis are our friends, why wouldn’t I go?” 

“Gee, I don’t know, because it’s  _ illegal!  _ They shouldn’t even be throwing that stupid party in the first place, they could get caught.” 

“You need to let loose once in a while, you know that? Jesus,” she huffs, her keys dangling in her hand as heads out the door. 

“Gabby, I—”

“Bye, Matt,” she calls out to him without looking back, the door slamming shut. The loud thud of the door makes him flinch slightly, and he huffs, immediately moving back to the couch and slumping down. 

If he’s being honest with himself, they’ve had this same fight too many times to count. Still, it manages to make him more mentally and physically exhausted than he already is, and he only just barely manages to get himself off the couch and stagger towards the fridge. Their fight, as nasty and depressing as it was, only manages to make him mopey and really damn hungry once he realizes he hasn’t had anything to eat since before lunch. He pulls the dinner she’d made out of the fridge and heats it up, sees Sylvie’s lemon meringue pie in there, and eats it for dessert afterward. The sweet filling makes his lips pucker, and it leaves a tart aftertaste in his mouth. It seems very fitting, at the moment, of his relationship with Gabby. He sighs, lets the smooth meringue soothe him, wallows in his misery as he sits at the table and eats his dessert in silence. The apartment feels so empty without Gabby there; so quiet. There’s no noise to drown out his thoughts, nothing and no one to distract him from thinking about everything that went down. 

Internalizing everything he’s been feeling these past few months hasn’t really been working out for Matt, apparently. Everything he’s done to try and fix things, every feeble attempt at working on their relationship; it’s all gone wrong. Maybe he just isn’t meant for that. Fixing tables, drywall, piping, and window frames? That, he can do. But people? Gabby? That’s a whole other question. And no matter how hard he works at it, they always seem to go back to square one. The soulmate debacle. It’s exhausting. 

There’s no way to stop it. It’s this inevitable ticking time bomb that’s been slowly approaching them, and in a few hours, it’s going to blow up in their faces, whether it be for better or for worse. But it only takes him an hour of sitting by himself, alone in their apartment, to realize how pointless these arguments are. It almost makes him laugh, the moot points they keep bringing up. Because they want the same thing, he realizes: they both want to be each other’s soulmates. Matt knows that much, and he hopes Gabby does too. The only difference is that she thinks they won’t stay together if they aren’t soulmates. 

Soulmates and romance are a complicated combination. When you’re a little kid in school, they teach you the really easy, watered-down version of soulmates. You can hear whatever music your soulmate listens to when you turn 21, those who don’t hear music are called mutes, only sounds that officially and legally qualify as music can be heard by your soulmate, unrequited soulmates can’t exist, all that jazz. But the idea of a soulmate being romantic has always been up for debate. Matt knows that nowadays, people and their soulmates aren’t always meant to be romantic soulmates. It could be a friend, a family member, a partner, or even a total stranger. But a lot of the time soulmates  _ are  _ romantic and, well… the idea is appealing to Matt. So does he wish he could end up with the person he’ll call his soulmate? Yes. But he’d never leave Gabby just because they weren’t soulmates. That fact alone wouldn’t be enough to scare him off, there’d have to be a lot more damage done than that.  _ God _ , he thinks.  _ Why couldn’t he have just told her that in the moment before she’d stormed out?  _

In the next hour that Matt spends wallowing, he texts Gabby to make sure she’s alright and to try and reassure her in any way he can. It takes him way too long to figure out what to say, and there are a million drafts that go unsent, but he keeps it short and simple, finally landing on something to say. 

_ Matt: I won’t stop loving you if we’re not soulmates. Trust me on that. I love you.  _

Maybe it’s not enough, maybe it’s too much. Maybe she hasn’t even bothered to check her phone because she’s been too busy partying. Who knows. But whatever she’s doing over at Joe and Otis’s dorm, he can only hope that she decides it’s less important than the fate of their relationship. At this point, Matt doesn’t know what she’ll decide, but he crosses his fingers and hopes for the best. Eventually, the nerves about his birthday being— nearly two hours away, he realizes as he checks the clock on the wall by the TV— start to settle in. Two hours until judgment day; two hours until his soulmate is revealed. It’s this weird, out of body experience that he has upon realizing it. His heart beats really fast, his mind feels really slow and the world stops spinning. It’s like a caffeine rush mixed with a panic attack, and it’s kind of awful. The worst part is that no matter how much he tries to distract himself by putting on the television, turning on the radio, checking his phone, or even trying to do schoolwork, none of it works. It doesn’t change the fact that in just a short amount of time, the thing that’s been eating at him will become a reality. It’s stressful, and yet Matt finds the thought somehow relieving. One way or another, they’ll work things out. All he can do is sit on the couch and hope that it will be alright. 

The back and forth going on in his head becomes sort of unbearable after another hour of sitting on his couch and wallowing. He’s still exhausted from his shift at work, and it’s getting late anyway, so he moves to his bed and crashes, not even bothering to lift the sheets over him as he gets into bed. Matt resists the temptation to close his eyes though, figuring Gabby might come back home at any minute to be with him when the clock strikes twelve. He fights to keep his eyes open as he rolls around their bed, tossing and turning and groaning. Eventually, he’s too tired from work, from school, and from their fight to keep himself awake, and he slowly dozes off. It’s barely past 10:00 by the time he’s out cold. 

The sound that wakes him up is excruciatingly annoying. It’s still completely dark outside when Matt is woken up by it, the lights in his apartment all off. Nothing but the neon red of the alarm clock next to his bed is there to light the room as he stirs in the bed, still without Gabby and still groggy as he sits up. The sound that he’s hearing is awful. A low, fast-paced beat is pounding in his head, and the weird, sharp synth sounds overtop of it aren’t in any way a comfort. But somehow, it feels familiar, and he gets that same warm feeling that he gets when he’s in the library. Like he’s himself again; like he hasn’t known peace and order in the world until he hears this god-awful music. It’s a weird sensation to have for a genre of music that usually irritates him. Matt thinks for a second that his phone is on. Sometimes his phone accidentally starts playing music, glitches and opens Spotify, stuff like that. But he looks over at his phone on the nightstand and blinks when he sees that there isn’t anything playing. He blinks again as he rubs his eyes and sees that his phone, as well as the alarm clock next to their bed, reads 12:26. It’s past midnight, which means technically he’s 21 now. “Happy birthday to me,” he grumbles. 

He’s only been asleep for a little over two hours, but his grumpy groans of fatigue are interrupted by the continuous pounding of loud, irritating music that feels like it’s being thrust into his ears. Joe and Otis’s kegger must still be going on, he thinks, until he realizes their dorm residence is two blocks away. The music he’s hearing can only mean one thing, a conclusion that sends him jolting awake as he suddenly becomes alert and aware of his surroundings, his mind racing with only one thought. 

Gabby Dawson. Gabby Dawson is his soulmate. 

The pounding music in his head is enough proof to send him jumping out of bed and running towards his jacket. He doesn’t even think about the fact that it’s technically his birthday, or that he’s still in his pajamas as he puts on his sneakers and runs out of his apartment. All he can think about is getting to her. To Gabby. The woman he loves and the woman who, as of 26 minutes ago, is his soulmate. The person made for him. The loud, electronic music still rings in his ears as he leaves their building and runs two blocks down to Joe and Otis’s dorm building. Their dorm room is on the second floor which means there aren't nearly as many stairs to run up as his apartment has, and he sighs in relief when he can hear the music on his own now, the sound becoming louder and louder with each step. Matt is hardly out of the stairwell and there are already people swarming around him, standing leisurely with red solo cups and smiles on their faces. He sees Gallo and Ritter huddled in the hallways together, waves at them absentmindedly, his mind focused on Gabby. The music comes from Joe and Otis’s dorm at the end of the hall, and Matt has to push past all of the people in his way. The further he gets, the more people there are, but he finally manages to stumble into their tiny dorm. 

“Hey, Matt! We thought you weren’t coming, man!” Joe’s voice comes from right next to him in their dorm, but he’s still hollering over the loud music. 

A massive speaker system is hooked up, lying on Otis’s bed as he messes with the buttons and handles. Joe has a drink in hand, bickering lightheartedly with his best friend. The two have known each other since they were in diapers and yet every time Matt sees them, they’re in the middle of some long and winded banter or argument. It’s endearing on good days, but right now Matt is too preoccupied with trying to find Gabby so all it does is irritate him. “I’m only going to be here for a minute. I still think this is a stupid idea,” he desperately hollers back over the noise. “Have either of you seen Gabby?”

Otis nods, still focused on the speaker system. “Yeah, I think she--”

Before Otis can finish his sentence, Matt hears a loud cheer coming from his left. When he turns around, he sees Sylvie dancing around in the middle of the crowd, carefree and jumping around like a maniac. Next to her, with the same wild, crazed energy to match, is Gabby. She’s dancing around right next to her and Stella, the three girls jumping around. 

“She’s over there with Sylvie,” Otis finishes. “The three of them are worse than I thought, I mean you’d think they’d at least try and be a bit quieter.” 

Matt is hardly paying attention to the two guys anymore, just makes his way over to the girls as fast as he can. As he pushes through the crowd and reaches them, they all cheer and shout at his presence. “You made it!” Stella ruffles his hair while jumping around. Sylvie’s still dancing like crazy, drinking from a cup filled with something that reeks.

  
“Not you too, Sylvie,” he groans. “I thought you were against this!” 

“I was,” she shouts over the crowd, her words slurred together. “It was Stella, she roped me into this, and then your girlfriend over here joined in, and now I can’t stop. Oh my gosh, this is so fun!” Her eyes move to Gabby, then she leans in and says to Matt in a whisper that’s too loud to be subtle, “Your girlfriend’s been missing you, you know.” 

“Yeah, I know. I have to tell her something.” 

“She’s your soulmate isn’t she?” The voice is Stella’s this time, her hair messy and in her face. 

“How’d you know?” 

“It’s midnight, Prince Charming, duh-doy. You heard the music here and you came running back to Cinderella.” After that, Matt watches as she looks around the room, ditzy and a little hammered as she and Stella throw their arms over each other and abruptly walk away, leaving to go talk to some sophomores. He makes a mental note to chase those two down afterward and make sure they get home alright, and then turns his attention back to Gabby. She’s standing in the middle of the crowd, just as drunk as the other two, and groans when they leave her with Matt. 

  
“I just want to have some fun, I don’t want to fight,” Gabby groans. “What do you want?” 

“I can hear this music,” he tells her excitedly. 

“Newsflash, dummy: everyone can hear it. It’s being played like twenty feet away from us.” 

“No, I mean I  _ heard  _ it,” he reiterates. “I could hear it from the apartment. Two blocks away.” 

“It’s not that loud,” she scoffs defensively., 

“Oh my god,” he mutters under his breath, exasperated at how long it’s taking her to get what he’s saying, before shouting again. “Gabby, it’s midnight. I’m 21. And I could hear it.” 

Her eyes go wide, and the two of them stand together, their eyes locked in with each other. Everything around them moves fast while they stand still, frozen in the middle of the room by Matt’s words. “You mean…” she takes a deep breath, trying to drown out the music and focus on him. 

“You’re my soulmate, Gabby. It’s you.” Matt revels in his words. Coming out of his mouth, they feel so sweet, so glorious, so relieving. It’s like this massive, exhausting weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. 

Matt watches as Gabby’s face moves slowly from shock to confusion, to complete and utter joy. Her face lights up in the widest smile he’s ever seen her make and she hugs him with such force that it sends him stumbling back a little. His arms wrap themselves firmly around her waist as the rest of the world moves around them, the hundreds of people surrounding them completely unaware of the sweet, triumphant revelation. Matt laughs into the corner of Gabby’s shoulder, her laughter just as loud and joyful as his. “Are you--” she pulls away from the hug for a moment, looking into his eyes. “Are you sure?” 

“Yes,” he chuckles. “Positive. I mean, we still have your birthday but we have it figured out now so there’s no need to wait. We’re soulmates.” At last, after all this time of worrying, Matt Casey finally has his soulmate.

She’s his soulmate. The worry, the wait, the sickening feeling of crashing headfirst into a train, it’s all gone. 

She’s his soulmate. They can relax, they can finally be happy. 

She’s his soulmate. And there’s no taking that away from him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the next chapter up early! I figured it might be nice for you guys to have a little treat to tide you over until 9x04 comes out this Wednesday! You guys were so sweet to comment on the last chapter and I'm very impressed at how many theories you folks are coming up with, it motivates me to write and makes me so beyond happy that you guys are invested. As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter <3

_“CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Listening to music over 70 decibels for a prolonged period of time could damage your hearing as well as your soulmate’s hearing. For more information, please visit your doctor or physician. Earplugs can also be found in the campus gift shop for only $1.99.”_

The not-so-surprise party for his birthday ends up being a little less enjoyable than the previous night, to Matt’s surprise. 

It’s probably due to the fact that half of them are hungover from the night before. He and Gabby had left pretty much immediately after he had found her, wanting some alone time, but by then the damage was done and Matt ends up being one of the only people not hungover at his own birthday party. Either way, he still feels as hungover as Gabby is from the repetitive electronic music pounding in his head for what felt like hours before they had left the party, and even before he had gotten there. 

He and Gabby wake up in each other’s arms. They both grumble at the idea of waking up but they drag themselves out of bed anyway and get dressed. Apparently, there’s some study cheat sheet Gabby claims is imperative that she gets at Severide’s and insists Matt come along with her. Gabby leads him through Stella and Severide’s door casually, as though nothing’s going on, with sunglasses on. She’s a better liar than the others, apparently, because for a minute he’s so distracted by her, and how amazing it is to have his soulmate next to him, that for a second he thinks he might have just imagined the comments about the surprise party. Then, he’s snapped out of it as they casually walk into Stella and Kelly’s apartment, the way they always have after Stella insisted that they make themselves at home when she and Kelly first moved in a year ago, and are met with silence. For a short moment, the apartment is dark and empty, the open window bringing in the fresh breeze. The moment then passes and everyone suddenly pops out of different hiding spots, sending Matt staggering back and blinking.

“Surprise,” they all shout at once. Their attempts at enthusiasm are admirable but unsuccessful. It comes out as groans and Matt has to try not to laugh at the sight of it. Even surrounded by balloons and streamers, his friends look like zombies rising from the dead as they jump out of hiding, circles under their eyes and horribly messy hair. 

Matt laughs as he walks into the room, the lights now turned on and the party setup visible. He eyes the balloons and notices the bright blue letters spelling out _‘It’s A Boy!’_. The letter A is scribbled out on every balloon, replaced with the word ‘birthday’ overtop. “Gee, you guys shouldn’t have,” he chuckles. 

“They were on sale for like 50 cents apiece so we improvised,” Joe explains bashfully.

“This is what happens when you put Dumb and Dumber over here in charge of decorations,” Sylvie mumbles. 

“Well thank you, everybody. I really appreciate it,” he thanks them. “Especially since you guys are all hungover.”

“Ah, yet another glorious part of being 21: no more using a fake ID to get alcohol,” Severide cheers.

“Seriously though, how much drinking did you guys do? You all look awful,” he teases. “Well, except for Gabby. You’re always beautiful,” he coos as he turns to Gabby, his hand intertwined with hers. She hums appreciatively, kisses him on the cheek. “Should we tell them?”   
  


“You can do the honours,” he offers, gesturing to the room. 

Gabby smiles, gives his hand a quick squeeze and looks around the room excitedly. “Ok. Well, I know everybody here who was at the party last night saw Matt drop by.”

“I only vaguely remember seeing him,” Stella chimes in. “Last night is sort of a blur in some parts, I may have gone a little overboard.”

“I saw him,” Sylvie realizes. “He came over to us when we were dancing, there was something about Prince Charming… Oh!” The minute she realizes, she seals her lips shut to keep herself from spilling the beans and gestures for them to continue. 

“We’re soulmates,” Gabby finally exclaims, taking her cheap sunglasses off and raking a hand through her brown, wavy hair. 

“We know,” Severide replies matter-of-factly. The rest of the group nods in agreement.   
  
“What do you mean ‘you know’? I thought you guys just said you couldn’t remember much from last night,” Gabby remarks from his side, her hand still firmly intertwined with his.

“Oh we don’t,” Stella nods, “except for Sylvie, I guess. But we kind of just figured you wouldn’t come to this party if you weren’t soulmates. No offense or anything, but you guys are total drama queens when it comes to each other.” 

“I would have come either way,” he protests, “and I am _not_ a drama queen.”

“Yes, you are,” Sylvie giggles. “You just hide it well.” 

Matt gasps indignantly, looks over at Gabby. A guilty wince is spread across her face. “You think so too?” 

“A little bit, yeah,” she nods. Matt huffs, which only makes her laugh even more. “But it’s endearing!” Her attempts at consoling him are unsuccessful when mixed with the laughter coming from her and the rest of their friends. 

“Hey, now that we’ve all admitted to knowing, you guys should show off your new superpowers,” Joe proposes excitedly. His enthusiasm is unmatched compared to everyone around him, even when hungover, but Matt assumes that’s because he has been 21 for the longest of all of them and still hasn’t found his soulmate. “Gabby, go run down to the main floor. We’ll put some music on blast and--”  
  


“Ah ah,” she interrupts him, “no way. There is no chance in hell I’m walking all the way down and back up. I’m way too hungover for that shit and it’s all your fault.” 

“Ah fine,” he sighs, with added exaggeration to make sure it’s noticed. Gabby laughs, and jokes that whoever finds their soulmate next can do that for him since Joe still probably won’t have found his soulmate by then. 

“Man, so everyone knows? Great, there goes the big surprise,” Matt mumbles. 

“Aw come on, Matt. We’re happy for you,” Kelly pouts teasingly. “Congratulations you two, really.” 

“Thanks, guys.” Matt smiles appreciatively, turns to Gabby who then smiles at him. It’s a good life he has. He realizes he has a lot to be thankful for. 

“Alright, let’s wrap this emotional sob-fest up so we can eat this cake,” Otis calls out. Everyone laughs, and Stella moves to get plates for everyone. Everyone gathers around the kitchen table once more, bringing out the store-bought vanilla cake with multi-coloured frosting. 

  
“Ok, ok,” Stella shouts over the chatter and excited buzz, “but first: a speech from the man of honour.” She gestures to Matt as Gabby grabs one of the cardboard party hats off of the table and puts it on his head. 

“Come on birthday boy. Speech, speech, speech!” Gallo starts the chant and just as everyone starts to join in, Matt caves, giving in to their demand. 

“Alright, fine, here goes nothing. Uhh… well, I’ve been alive for 21 years now. It only feels like it’s been three years since I’ve really learned how to live a little, though, because that’s when I met you guys. And the woman who is now my soulmate, who is the most amazing, badass woman on the planet, and the best thing in my life. So, you know… thank you, for being here. I used to think I didn’t have a stable family, but I have you guys. And where there are friends, there’s family.”

“Period, Casey, tell ‘em!” Stella cheers out and pumps a fist into the air. 

“Okay, thank you for that, Stella,” he winces while chuckling. “Cheers,” he finishes in between his laughter, “to family. And to another year on this earth!” Matt tips his party hat jokingly and everyone raises their glasses of water in celebration. Joe and Otis light the candles on the cake and Sylvie starts to sing Happy Birthday, but is cut off by the many hungover friends shushing her pleadingly. Matt, for the first time in his life, has no idea what he’d wish for. What’s the point of wishing on candles when you have everything you’ve been worried of never having?

He blows them out anyway, wishes for a happy life with his soulmate, and watches as Sylvie and Stella hand out plates with massive slices of cake. 

Everyone talks and eats, their voices more tired and strained than usual from the night before. Matt still has a blast. Nothing, not even a pounding headache shared by everyone in the room could bring him down. He’s riding this natural high like there’s no tomorrow and he loves it. The rest of the day-- the half-assed texts from his sister and mom, the lack of Advil in their apartment-- it doesn’t matter. All he can focus on now is the good parts. Opening his presents is fun and, whereas all of the sentimental gifts make his heart swell with gratitude, he has to admit that his favourite gift comes from Severide, who writes him a cheque for two months worth of rent. It’s hilarious how the rich boy habits never die, but he loves and appreciates his best friend’s gesture. Sylvie gets him the walkman similar to the one he had as a kid so he can listen to music, Joe and Otis give him a coupon to Zumba classes that Joe swears by (but that Matt will probably never use), Gallo and Ritter give him one of the tacky neon school shirts being sold the day they met as a gag gift, Stella gives him a nice tool belt for when his career takes off after graduation, and Gabby gives him a _mug_. 

He doesn’t know why it irks him so much. A travel mug is a useful, practical thing, he needs it, and it looks nice. There is quite literally nothing wrong with it, no valid reason to hate it. But it isn’t the most sentimental gift, and Matt can’t shake the weird feeling that this damn mug sends zipping through his chest. 

Maybe it’s that he just romanticizes the soulmate idea too much. Maybe he’s just looking for a fight, going into self-destructive autopilot. There’s no reasonable explanation for it, he decides, so he pushes that weird feeling down and stores it away for a rainy day. This time, he’ll really deal with it. This time, he won’t ignore it forever. This time, they’ll work through it much quicker. 

Because this time, they’re soulmates 

When he reminds himself of that, it’s easy to let it go and focus on the good. He smiles his way through the rest of the party with Gabby by his side, cracking jokes and laughing with him and his friends until, eventually, his smile becomes real again. They’ve had better parties, and they’ve definitely had way worse parties too. But for a birthday party-- and for a guy who isn’t all that big on birthdays of all people-- it’s pretty alright. 

The party only lasts until after lunch, then people slowly start leaving. Stella has a shift at the bar she works at, Molly’s, Sylvie had promised Ritter she’d help him study for his Marketing class, and Joe and Otis leave to finish cleaning up from their party last night. Things die down, and warm hugs and goodbyes are exchanged. 

“Bye guys!” Gabby and Matt cheerfully wave goodbye to everyone, arm in arm as they slink out of the apartment with everyone else after the present opening is finished. Since neither of them has much else to do, they spend the rest of the day together, lounging around their apartment. He helps her with her extra credit stuff for Goodwin and she helps him as much as she can with his work while still knowing nothing about the subject. Her version of helping feels a lot more like distracting him with sex, but he definitely doesn’t complain. They do work, then relax, then goof around in their apartment. It’s calm; the calmest they’ve had since the summer. Mere days ago, things between them had been looking less than optimal. It’s funny how things can change in just one weekend. The storm has passed and now, even after the chaos they’ve endured, the rainbow appears. Matt loves it, feels like it’s too good to be true. 

Life feels like a breeze after that. His classes feel easier than they really are, he feels cheerier and more upbeat, and his job is half bearable. As autumn comes in, the leaves turn bright shades of red, orange, brown, and yellow, which remind him of Gabby even more. Of her fire, of her passion. Some people believe that when you find your soulmate, increased serotonin levels can be common. Even though it’s been proven to be a myth, Matt feels that myth in his bones more than ever. 

Gabby’s birthday comes around a week later, falling on a weekday. She’s not really into celebrating her birthday, but since her nerves about them being official soulmates are gone, Matt is happily excited by how receptive she is to the idea of doing something special on the day of. Although for them, that means checking Gabby’s newly acquired abilities, and they make a whole thing out of it.

On the small portion of their break that they share between classes, she goes into the school bathroom and Matt uses the walkman Sylvie gave him to play music, testing their soulmate abilities just to make sure. He settles on Frank Sinatra because it’s the only cassette he has so far. The smooth, low tone of Sinatra’s voice fills his ears as he waits outside the bathroom for her. It feels like an eternity that he’s waiting, but ends up only being seconds before she walks out. His heart beats fast seeing her standing there, and he gets nervous for the first time since the week before his own birthday all those weeks ago. There’s a brief moment where everything feels quieter than silence, his gaze sharp and blazing with anticipation. Tears well in her eyes and her smile goes wide and bright as she gives a curt nod. _She hears it too._

He wraps his arms around her and twirls her around the hall, the people walking near them confused and slightly annoyed. Joe and Otis bump into them by pure coincidence and start making barfing sounds to mess with them. It doesn’t matter though. All that matters is them. They feel right again, as right as they felt when they first started dating. Matt loves it, feels like he’s in this constant state of relief and joy. That night, they don’t bother hanging out with their friend, choosing instead to fool around in bed. The quality time is much needed, and their friends recognize just as much when they hang out the next day. They give Gabby cute homemade presents intermittently throughout the day, and they hug her. Whatever sense of tension and drama that had been lurking over their group ever since the fight disappears, and Matt is relieved that they’ve regained some sense of normalcy. As much as he loves his friends, he doesn’t want them picking sides if it means creating more drama. Now that they’re here though, now that he and Gabby are soulmates, they both agree that they’ll try to work things out in a way that won’t affect their friend group. Eventually, all memories of their rough patch are forgotten and balance is restored to the universe. 

This happy phase in their relationship ends up being just that: a phase. 

Matt notices it fairly early in, only one day after Gabby’s birthday. She won’t listen to any music. It’s expected; couples often need a transition period to get used to the perks of being soulmates. But her Spotify account goes untouched, she barely uses Matt’s walkman (which is very unlike her; Gabby’s never been afraid to be comfortable around Matt and make herself at home), and Matt’s requests to just testing out the perks of their newly discovered connection go unfulfilled. Music becomes a touchy subject for them pretty quickly. 

“Come on, Gabby,” he pleads one day during the walk back to their apartment, “please? Just one time? All you have to do is name the song I’m listening to. You won’t even have to move.”

“No!” She protests. “We’re soulmates. It’s not a party trick, I’m not just going to whip out my earbuds and show it off like it’s a superpower.” 

“It’s kind of like a superpower,” he mumbles back, a weak protest to her argument. 

  
“Besides,” she continues, ignoring his comment, “Sylvie’s going crazy from the wait for her birthday. Ritter and Gallo are still years away from their 21st birthdays too. Even Joe hasn’t found his soulmate yet-- and he was born in January! It wouldn’t be fair to brag about this in front of our friends.”

  
“Fair point,” he concedes. 

The conversation is sort of dropped after that. Matt figures that Gabby probably just doesn’t want to press her luck after how much it took for them to get to where they are now, but he doesn’t get why she’d be so nervous about it being taken away from them. They’ve already confirmed that they’re soulmates, and from what people have studied, soulmates don’t change. Once they’re there, they’re there forever. However convoluted he finds her logic, it’s still her logic, and he decides to leave it be. Matt is more than fine with his abilities coming into use only when inevitable, like during class or on the street, or when music plays in the restaurants and shops that they go to with their friends. Settling for that hardly even feels like just settling. And he does sort of feel guilty for not thinking of that before, how insensitive it might be to showcase their new abilities in front of their friends. Especially in front of Sylvie, who had been considerate enough to check up on him during his and Gabby’s rough patch. It can’t be rough, having a December birthday. So he agrees not to show off all that much. It annoys Kelly and he whines about not being able to see it when he and Stella had been forced to show their connection off to everyone in the group but then again, everything annoys Kelly Severide. Well, everything except Stella.

It’s why Matt isn’t surprised when Kelly texts him two days later during the afternoon. It’s an ominous text, even for Severide who’s notorious for being a vague texter.

_NEW MESSAGE - Kelly Severide_

_I’m done with class at 4:00. Meet me on campus. IMPORTANT!!!!!_

Uh-oh. Kelly doesn’t use exclamation points on a good day. Using that many means either it’s a matter of life and death, or someone’s stolen his phone. Matt groans at the thought of having to go out since the last week of September has finally arrived and the fall weather reaches its peak, the leaves becoming crunchy and the winds becoming strong and relentless. Nonetheless, he grabs his coat, yanks a beanie over his head, and heads out to meet Severide on campus. If it’s as important to his best friend, it’s important to him. 

It only takes him a few minutes to get there, the bounce in Matt’s step letting him walk faster than his usual pace. Severide spots him from all the way across the strip of pavement they’re both on, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he urgently and eagerly makes his way towards Matt. “Hey, thanks for meeting me.”

“Are you alright? You used exclamation points in your message and I thought someone had kidnapped you.” 

“What, I’m not normally a cheerful texter?” 

“No. You’re dry and mean over text. You once told me that only deadbeats and losers use emojis.” 

“Hey, screw you,” he laughs defensively, “I’m just excited.” 

“Excited about what?” Matt asks, makes sure to emphasize the desperation in his voice. Whatever’s making Severide this excited must be important, and the curiosity is starting to get the best of Matt. 

“Ok, here goes nothing I guess,” Kelly chuckles nervously. “I’m going to propose to Stella.”

Matt can practically feel his eyes jumping out of his head. The world around them feels quiet, the sounds of the city surrounding them muffled by his hat. “What?” 

“I’m going to ask her to marry me. 

“You, Kelly Severide… you’re asking Stella… _Kidd…_ to marry you?” 

“Uh, yeah. You know, spend the rest of my life with her, saying ‘I do’, sickness and health, all that shit. Try and keep up, man,” he huffs, patting Matt on the shoulder. 

  
“Oh my god,” Matt chuckles, finally processing the news as the initial shock wears off. “You’re going to propose. Wow, Stella’s finally making an honest man out of you.”

“Ok well she hasn’t actually said yes yet but yeah, that’s the idea.” 

“Ha!” Matt laughs-- in shock, in excitement, in all of it coming out in a laugh-- and pulls Kelly into a hug quickly enough so that he can’t escape from him, patting him on the back. “Married. Wow. You’re definitely not the same player with commitment issues you were when I first met you.” 

“Hey, you take that back,” he teases. “Agh!” He grunts and lifts a hand to his head, rubbing his temples. “Great, Stella’s listening to Lorde’s Melodrama album again. And giving me hearing loss.”

“Serves you right,” he laughs. “Seriously though, this is great, Sev. Congrats.” 

“Thanks,” Severide acknowledges, patting Matt on the back too. “Yo-you’re kind of squishing me though. It’s not a good combo with the music I’m hearing right now.” His voice is strained and Matt realizes he’s hugging Kelly way too tightly. He lets go, laughing. 

  
“Sorry,” he chuckles apologetically. 

“That wasn’t all I texted you for though, you know,” Severide continues. “I need you for something.” 

“Of course.” Matt doesn’t hesitate to offer his help, nodding along fervently. “What can I do?”

  
“I need you to come with me to help pick out a ring.” 

“A ring! Oh man,” he realizes, “your parents won’t be happy with you spending money on a ring. Do they know you’re doing this?” 

“Oh, I told them, alright. This is why we will most certainly not be shying away from pricey rings.” 

“How’d they react? They like Stella, they must be happy for you, right?” 

“I don’t know. Stella’s only met them a few times, all of which have been very tense and strange, especially with Benny and everything. I told them the other day but didn’t really give them much of a chance to react.”

“What, you just dropped the bomb and then bolted?”

“Pretty much,” he sighs. “With the way their marriage is crashing and burning, I’d rather die than stick around to hear their take on my relationship with Stella.” 

“That’s understandable,” Matt nods before clapping his hands together. “Alright, so we’re going ring shopping now?”  
  


“We’re going ring shopping now,” Kelly affirms. “Let’s go.”

They walk along the streets filled with shops and stores, looking in whatever jewelry stores they can find. Severide pulls out his phone and looks on the map app to find a ring store. There’s a jeweler who sells engagement rings four blocks away, so they zip their coats up and head down the street, facing the wind as they make their way to the store. 

They walk in and are instantly met with silence. The breeze outside feels loud in their ears compared to the quiet shuffling and soft speaking inside the store. Glass cases of rings, bracelets, and necklaces all line the store in a perfect U-shape. A man in a suit comes up to them and asks if they need help today, but Severide brushes him off, assures him they’re just there to browse (which he always does because Severide can hardly accept help from his closest friends, nevermind a store clerk), and they start looking. 

They start out on the right side of the store and work their way around counter-clockwise. The first few cases are bigger things like necklaces, crystal figurines, tiaras. They don’t reach the engagement rings until they get closer to the back, in the middle. Matt follows Severide’s lead and leans over the glass cases, observing the ring curiously.   
  


“What about that one? That looks expensive.” He jokingly points to the biggest ring in the rows and rows of rings, the band encrusted in diamonds with a center diamond that probably costs more than Matt’s rent. “I know Stella will hate it, but I’d buy five of those just to piss off Benny.” 

“Yeah, I get that you have issues with your dad, but maybe don’t piss off Stella in the process? I don’t know just a thought,” he ponders teasingly.

“Alright, funny guy, I get your point,” he laughs. They keep looking at the rings lined up in the cases one by one, searching for the perfect one. Matt feels a little useless given the fact that Stella is Severide’s soulmate, not his, but he does his best. Severide ends up finding the ring, to no one’s surprise.

“That one,” Severide immediately blurts out, pointing at the ring in the case. It’s a small, thin band with a simple, clean diamond in the middle. Matt has to give it to him; Kelly Severide really knows how to pick his jewelry. It’s the perfect ring for Stella: not gaudy or showy, just simple, elegant, solid. Matt sees the small glimmer in Kelly’s eye and knows that they’ve found it. 

One of the two clerks in the store walks up to them and Kelly asks if they can see it. When it’s pulled out of the case, the clerk goes on to describe the ring: a cushion cut diamond, white gold band, two carats. Matt doesn’t know what that means, but he looks at the square shape of the diamond and clues in. Severide is hardly paying attention though, just turns his attention back up to the clerk after staring longingly at the ring. “I’ll take it.” 

“Sir, don’t you want to know the price of the ring first?”

“Whatever it is, I’ll pay it,” he affirms, nodding his head decidedly. 

The clerk looks puzzled, but shrugs and leads them to the cash register, ring box still in hand. It ends up being a fairly reasonable price, and they’re assured that it’s ethically made with recycled materials, which Stella will love. Severide pulls out a credit card and pays for it absentmindedly, a smile plastered on his face. It’s refreshing for Matt to see, really. He loves Severide to death, but that guy has always been a tough nut to crack. He knows what it’s like to hide your emotions, but Kelly was just on another level of emotional stuntedness before he met Stella. Watching him now, being so open and happy, it’s like he’s a whole new version of himself. Matt sees the person he met all those years ago, but just… elevated. In his element. According to studies, soulmates are supposed to have that effect on you. He wonders how long it will take to feel it, wonders if he’s already in that stage with Gabby without knowing it. 

They walk back the way they came, crossing to go on the other side of the street when Matt gets curious and asks Severide only semi-casually, “When did you decide you wanted to marry Stella? Is this some sort of _new_ development in your life?” 

“Wanting to marry Stella? Are you kidding?” He gives out a little laugh and looks at Matt like he’s waiting for the punchline, shaking his head when he sees how confused Matt is and realizes there isn’t one. “I knew I wanted to marry Stella before I even knew we were soulmates. I don’t know. It just never mattered to us as much. We agreed when we first started dating that we would stay together as long as possible regardless of all this cool soulmate crap. Getting that confirmation that we’re soulmates this past spring was sort of the green light that I needed. And it’s been months, I just never really got around to it. But seeing you and Gabby work through everything and find out you two are soulmates, it inspired me, I guess.”

  
“Glad I could be of help, then,” Matt smiles before trailing off, his thoughts flying to Gabby.

“You sure you don’t want to go back and get you a ring of your own for her?” Matt can tell from Kelly’s voice that he’s only partly joking, and from the way his eyes wait on Matt expectantly for an answer. 

  
“Me?” Matt hates how shocked his voice comes out. It makes him feel weird but he can’t quite wrap his head around why. 

  
“Yeah, man. Matt, you and Gabby have been dating for six months longer than Stella and I have. Figuring out whether you guys were soulmates was the only roadblock in your way. So what’s stopping you?”

“I don’t know,” Matt blurts out, confused. Because he doesn’t. He has no idea what’s keeping him from proposing to Gabby. They’ve been together for some time now, it’s not a completely unheard-of thing. But he thinks back to their rough patch, thinks of the articles she’d sent him over text about music and hearing loss to justify her not wanting to listen to music. And then, as he stops walking and zones out to think about it while Severide watches him worriedly, he thinks about the biggest reason he can think of: because he hadn’t even thought about it. 

It’s an awful thing to realize, really. The fact that in _all_ the time they’ve been together, nevermind the past month, marriage hasn’t crossed his mind. Being soulmates felt like such a big hill to get over for them that he hadn’t really stopped to think about anything else beyond that. “I don’t know,” he repeats to Kelly, “I guess I just never really thought about it.”

“Oh.” Matt hates that oh that comes out of Severide’s mouth. It’s so restrained, so delicate. He can tell his best friend is trying way too hard to be casual, and it irks him.

“We just figured the soulmate thing out and, well, we’re so young…”

“I’m proposing and last time I checked, I’m the same age as you. Besides, people get married young. That’s what happens when you find your soulmate at 21. Or, in Joe’s case, when you’re an old man,” Kelly teases. Joe Cruz having the worst luck ever always manages to make them laugh (and immediately feel guilty about laughing afterward). The poor guy was the first of all of them to turn 21 and he still has been searching for his soulmate around town. There are rare occasions in history, stories of people who are soulmates but never end up meeting because they’re halfway across the world. But Joe possibly being one of them drives him crazy to a comical extent. It’s made him a bit of a sleuth, and he and Otis have been on a mission to find his soulmate since his birthday-- and to annoy them in the meantime with crazy parties and dance music. 

“Yeah,” Matt agrees, letting out a breathy laugh. “I guess. I just want to have some time to relax for a while before thinking about the future again. Lately, it feels like that’s all Gabby and I _can_ do.” 

Severide nods, understands exactly what Matt means. Matt still feels weird about it though, which he also picks up on, so they stay silent for the rest of their walk back. Severide slips the ring box into his jacket pocket once they walk into their building. “Hey, Matt calls out as Kelly walks off the elevator. “I can tell Gabby about this, right?” 

“Uh… hold that thought, actually. I want to surprise everyone with this, not just Stella. I’ll text you the details later but for now, this just stays between you and me.” He waves goodbye to Matt as he hops off the elevator before Matt can protest. 

The walk down the hall to his apartment feels long as Matt reaches his floor, soaking in the information from their afternoon together. The same weird feelings that festered in his stomach earlier comes back and takes over. As happy as he is for his best friend, it makes the insecurity of his relationship with Gabby come flooding back. Why hadn’t he considered proposing to her? Why had it never even crossed his mind? Shouldn’t he want to propose to someone that, not only a month ago, he found out was his soulmate? 

He shakes his head, brushes it off, and realizes how ridiculous he’s sounding. Comparing his relationship to Severide and Stella’s is never a good idea. Given Severide’s less than impressive history with dating before Stella, Matt decides against ever trying to follow in his footsteps. Besides, he thinks, he and Gabby have been together for a long time. There’s no doubting that they’re serious. Whatever’s to come will come eventually. Coughing it up to his insecurities and his nerves is easy after that. He walks in through his front door, sits himself down on the couch, and pushes it out of his mind with work. Gabby comes and sits next to him soon after. “Hey, what’d Severide want?”

“Oh, he was just panicking over his workload. I guess the not paying attention and skipping lectures thing finally caught up to him.” Matt doesn’t enjoy the idea of lying to Gabby in the slightest, feels a little gross doing it, but keeps his promise to his best friend. Besides, he knows Gabby will enjoy the surprise just as much as the rest of them. 

“Ah, makes sense,” she sighs amusedly, snuggling into Matt’s side. “Ugh, I’m so exhausted. I’ve been working my ass off for Goodwin so much lately that I had to spend the entire afternoon catching up on my other classes.” 

“Yeah, how’s that going anyway?”

“Good. Ugh, so good.” She gets that fiery look in her eye as she tells him about it, the way she always does when she’s passionate about something. “She’s been teaching me so much, and she has so much experience with social work all around the world, it’s amazing, it-it’s inspiring! I mean, the work is a lot to handle but it’s totally worth it.” She’s squirming around in his arms on the couch from gesticulating so much as she speaks. Clearly, she’s enthusiastic about this opportunity and it makes Matt so proud of her. 

“That’s great,” he smiles, kissing her on the forehead. “Any updates on the extra credit opportunity she was talking about?”  
  


“Nope,” she replies, bummed out. “Not yet, unfortunately.” Gabby moves to kiss him, switches the subject to what they’re going to eat for dinner, and Matt eventually becomes distracted enough to be stress-free until night comes. 

He looks over to Gabby as they get in bed that night, his eyes fixed on her. So what if he’s a little uncertain? Everybody is, at one point or another. He’s always been a naturally shy and insecure guy sometimes, especially when it comes to romance, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything to be worried about. Does it? 

He curls up next to her, tries to let her natural confidence rub off on him. It doesn’t work, and his eyes stay wide open for half the night. Thinking about their relationship hardly makes him feel better. All the sacrifices, the tension, the constantly having to brush things off. He can feel that something’s wrong-- with him, with Gabby, with their relationship. It’s an indescribable feeling, but his stomach churns at it. There’s a tether on him, and no matter how much he wants to fight it, he can’t help but feel it pulling it away from Gabby. 

Maybe he’s just worried over nothing; maybe he’s just paranoid. But for some reason, he goes to sleep that night feeling further away from Gabby than ever.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I can say is... Bon Voyage, I guess??  
> As promised, here's the new chapter.

_ “CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Studies show that the average person gets married by the age of 24. The lowered average age for engagements also means that weddings have to be paid for along with student loans, causing a 14% increase in national student loan debt. If you or someone you know needs financial help, please contact Headmaster Boden or any of the guidance counselors.” _

There are very few occasions where Matt feels like some special VIP. 

It’s mainly because he’s neither special nor important in the grand scheme of the world. He’s always had just enough money to get by, the typical middle-class, golden boy. His high school knew him as the kid who was a well-behaved leader, but generally quiet and keeping to himself. But in rare instances like these, where he’s messaged by Headmaster Boden to come to his office in the afternoon only a week after his ring shopping trip with Severide, it fills him with the same sense of importance that he assumes rich kids feel. 

He’s known Boden since he was a kid, which is why he normally gets called to his office. Boden is more of a father to him than his own father was at times, before his death, so he always gets checked up on by him. Matt’s mom really appreciated him acting as a father figure to Matt during his time of grief and recovery as a teenager. Matt used to find it aggravating, but now he sort of enjoys it. Boden is a cool guy, albeit a little scary at times, and gives Matt support and encouragement whenever he needs it. And he isn’t nosy or judgemental like his mother and sister are sometimes, even when his sister is halfway across the country. The only downside of visits like this is that since nobody really knows the reason why Matt gets called down so often to see the man that runs the whole place, everyone calls him a kissass and thinks Boden’s playing favourites. 

Kelly is proposing today too. He sends Matt every single detail about it over text and is taking the ordeal very seriously, which is a nice change of pace to his normal, excessive nonchalance and jadedness. Nothing too fancy, out on the quad where they first met after dark with all of their friends and the warm yellow light from the lamp posts. Kelly swears Stella will love it, but planned it for today and gave Matt, along with his other unsuspecting friends, only a week’s notice about meeting on the campus. It’s honestly a miracle that Kelly’s lasted a whole week in the first place. If there’s anything Matt’s learned from their trip ring shopping, it’s that Kelly Severide doesn’t want to spend one more minute without being engaged to Stella. So Matt has to prepare himself for a long day. Nonetheless, he responds to the email and gladly accepts Boden’s request to stop by his office.

Matt makes his way to Boden’s office after leaving his morning class a few minutes early (Modern Architecture is sort of a snooze though so he isn’t complaining). The walk to the main building is short but he likes the route and really, he only left early so that he could take his time and not have to rush, taking in the vibrant leaves and letting himself relax a little. He even uses his walkman and listens to music on the way there, picks something he knows Gabby will like so that she doesn’t get annoyed by it while in class. 

His receptionist, Connie, greets him as soon as he walks in and gestures towards the door. “Hi again, Mr. Casey. Go right on in, he’s waiting for you.”

“Thanks,” Matt nods. Boden is sitting in his chair when he walks in, his glasses on and his thick brows furrowed in agitation at his computer. “Hi, Headmaster.”

“Matt, have a seat,” he greets him kindly, gesturing to one of the chairs opposite to his desk and turning his attention away from the computer. “How have you been? I heard you and Gabby Dawson are now officially soulmates.”

“Yeah, we are. It’s only been a few weeks but it’s been great. It’s certainly an adjustment but we’re both thrilled,” he explains. 

“Good, I’m glad to hear it. And how are things with your mother and sister? Any better?”

“I guess,” he shrugs. “They wished me a happy birthday last month but Christie’s busy with her new life in L.A. and my mom’s not all that talkative over the phone. To be honest, it doesn’t bother me all that much. I have a life outside of them now, I just wish they weren’t so icy about it.”

“I see,” he nods sympathetically. “Well if you need anything, all you have to do is ask. Within reason of course. I still remember Severide coming in here during your sophomore year asking for the answer keys to all his tests.” He lets out a soft chuckle. “The Severides are generous donors to this school but that boy is a pain in the ass.” 

“True, but he really does look up to you. I think all of us do, really.” There’s truth to Matt’s statement: his friends aren’t necessarily as close with Boden as he is, but they’ve all been to see him at one point or another and admire him a lot. Kelly even developed the habit of calling him Chief, and Stella always says 'O Captain, My Captain!' when he walks by him on campus. “Is that all you were here to do,” he continues, “to ask if I needed anything?” 

“No,” he starts. “One of the reasons your professor let you come here early is so I could offer you an opportunity. Apparently, he sees as much potential in you as I do. And there is an opening for a co-op with some big shot construction company.” 

“Oh… Well, that sounds great and I’m honoured, really. But I already have a job. I don’t know how much time I’d have in my schedule for that.” 

“It’s only in the mornings starting next semester, and Connie made sure it isn’t interfering with any of your classes next term, so you’ll have plenty of time to do both. And I’ve already spoken with Mr. Darden, he says he’s more than willing to give you a month’s pay should you decide to quit and take this co-op instead. However, I understand that you’re a busy man, especially with the age you are right now, with... soulmates, and all,” he grunts. Boden’s never been the biggest fan of soulmates ever since he’s seen the crazy lengths the kids at this place will go to in order to find their soulmate. It’s part of why he’s ordered stricter protocols on partying and music in general. Matt likes having a soulmate, but when it comes to the general downsides that he sees on the daily, he sides with Boden for sure.

A co-op though, that’s some kind of opportunity. A crazy, amazing, huge opportunity. It would certainly guarantee him a spot at any big shot construction company he wants. But it’s a big responsibility, so he doesn’t want to take it unless he’s sure he wants it. “Can I get back to you?”

“Of course,” Boden nods, “think about it for a while and come to me when you decide. My email is no longer working, so you can have Connie pass the message on to me. This new technology nowadays is a handful,” he grunts again and pushes out his words with the typical disdain of a man his age. Boden’s always been a little old-fashioned, and even though it’s what drew in Matt in the first place, it’s sort of hilarious to watch him groan at his computer all the time. 

  
“Will do, Chief,” he affirms, suppressing a small laugh. It puts a small, subtle smile on Boden’s face, hidden by his mustache. Matt gets up to leave but turns around, remembering the other major event happening today. “By the way, Kelly’s proposing to Stella today.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” he chuckles, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek. “He’s finally doing it.”   
  
“Yeah. It’s about time, right?”

“He’s going to be a lucky man, that’s for sure. Stella Kidd is one fierce woman,” he nods. “And I have a feeling you know a great deal about fierce women too.”   
  


“Oh yeah,” he agrees wittily. “But I’m sure he’d really appreciate it if you were there.”

“Oh that’s quite alright,” Boden reassures him, “That boy does not need more of an audience to boost his ego. Your little group of friends will give him all the support he needs. Give them my best, though.” 

Matt smiles at him, nods understandingly, and agrees. “I’ll uh, I’ll see you later then.”

“Later,” he reaffirms as Matt opens the door and leaves. 

His afternoon classes feel dreadfully long and strangely silent as he ponders the new opportunity that Boden had just dropped in his lap. There’s no telling where it would take him in terms of his career and no guarantee that another opportunity like this would pop up like this again. Still, he wants to check with Gabby first, so he waits until he talks with her about it to make his decision. 

Finally, the evening comes and everyone is forced to meet up on the quad. Matt gets held up trying to find someone from his morning class that he can get notes on the part he missed from. He ends up being late and knows he’ll be the last one there from the AC/DC songs only he can hear being played as he leaves the building.  _ Gabby must be there too _ . When he gets there, Severide looks antsy and nervous, scratching the back of his neck while sighing. The change from his normally confident ways seems to throw everyone off and even though they’re acting casual when Matt gets there, he can see the worried glances they’re throwing Kelly’s way. Gabby, Sylvie, Joe, Otis, Gallo, Ritter, the whole lot of them. Everyone’s still waiting for Stella but as suspected, Gallo and Gabby are standing on the outskirts of the group, blasting ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ for the whole group to hear. And, apparently, for everyone who’s walking by to hear as well. 

“What’s going on with him? He’s been doing this for the past half hour.” Joe comes up to him and starts rambling before Matt can even let out a quick hello to everyone. “And where have you been, man? You’re late and he keeps muttering your name under his breath.” 

“I know, I’m sorry I’m late. It’s sort of a long story. He’ll be fine though, he’s just, uh... amping himself up for the surprise.”

“Yeah what is this surprise anyway?” Matt hears the music stop and Gallo shouts out his question as he and Gabby get closer to the group. 

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he hints playfully. Gabby sneaks in by his side and wraps her arms around his side, pulling him in close to keep warm. 

“Hey there stranger,” she teases. “Why  _ were  _ you late anyway?’

“I actually need to talk to you about that.” He pulls her aside from the group as Gallo continues playing music through his cracked iPhone. “Thanks for encouraging him by the way,” he mumbles sarcastically, “who doesn’t love hearing shrill, booming rock music on a peaceful evening?” 

“Sorry,” she laughs weakly, glancing at the rest of the group before turning back to him. “So what’s up?”

“Boden asked me to meet with him. There’s a co-op for some division of city planners available next semester and he wants me to take it. It’s a really great opportunity, and it wouldn’t interfere with my job or anything, but I just wanted to run it by you first and make sure you’re okay with it.” 

“Next semester?”

“Yeah…” he continues cautiously, uneasy about where this is heading. “Why?”

“Well, don’t you think you’ll want to do something else next semester? What if you don’t want something tying you down to one place for so long?”   


“It’s not like we’re going anywhere.” He laughs incredulously at the thought of it. Chicago is his home: always has been, always will be. And it’s not like they have any trips planned in the coming few years, so he really doesn’t know what she’s going on about. “But okay,” he gives in, not wanting a repeat of the beginning of the year. “If you don’t want me to take it then I won’t.” 

  
She thinks it over for a minute, then pulls him in closer and leans her head against him. “Ok, good.” He feels her let out a deep breath and cling to his arm ever so slightly. Clearly, he was right to have brought it up with her first, because she’s getting even more worked up over it than he had expected. 

“Casey! I need you man,” he hears Kelly call out. 

“That’s my cue,” he mumbles to Gabby, his voice still delicate. He leaves her and comes to Severide’s beck and call, watching his best friend fiddle with the ring box in his hands. “How are you holding up?”

“Alright, I guess. She’s a few minutes late, but she said her job interview might run a bit late. These idiots aren’t helping either-- hey, Gallo! Cut the music man, you’re going to disturb half the soulmates on this whole goddamn campus! And Stella's in an interview right now, she doesn't need this shit!”

Matt watches as Gallo’s eyes go wide and he frantically turns the volume down on his phone. “Alright then,” Matt mutters under his breath tensely. Severide’s never been nervous before, and he’s sure Kelly is as freaked out about that as the rest of them. “You need to calm down, man. You’re going to be fine, you and Stella are meant for each other. Literally.” His attempt at a joke gets a small snort from Severide. 

“Yeah, ok.” 

He lets the rest of their friends talk among themselves, sits next to Severide on the short brick detailing in total silence as they wait for Stella to come. He understands better than most that Kelly’s just a dude who likes the quiet and leaves a lot unsaid. And even though their friends are all rowdy, he knows that sitting there is enough.

Stella walks up to everyone ten minutes later. The wait is sort of dreadful, and the minute she starts walking up to everyone Severide gives Gallo and Ritter a cue, and they switch the music from AC/DC to Sinatra’s This Love of Mine. He remembers the story of that song being the first one Severide had heard from Stella’s headphones halfway across campus last March. The lamp posts on campus start to light up and give everyone a warm, yellow tint. Severide pulls a fistful of rose petals out of the pockets in his jeans, his jacket, his bag. He tosses them around, which makes Matt laugh more than it should. Count on Kelly Severide to buy loose rose petals and keep them in his pockets the whole day. They form a semi-circle around Severide, leaving him front and center as he stares at her adoringly. “Hi,” he greets her. 

“What is this…?” She looks around at everyone, but their faces are just as clueless as hers. 

“No idea,” Otis shakes his head, “he’s been barking orders at us about this whole thing for the past twenty minutes and still won’t tell us. Except for Casey, of course.”

“Don’t sound so bitter, you’re finding out now anyway,” he counters. 

Kelly gives them a pointed glare that sends them both into silence, then turns back around to Stella. “I asked them all to come here today. And I know you don’t like surprises that are big and flashy so I’ll keep this short. But you, Stella Kidd… are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re strong, and smart, and amazing. I love you more than anything. And if you’ll let me,” he inhales as he gets down on one knee, ignoring the very loud gasps coming from their friends, “I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to prove it.” He pulls the small box out and opens the lid, revealing the ring they had found. 

Stella falls to her knees to meet Severide at eye level. They stay silent for a frozen moment in time, their group of friends on the edge of their seats as he continues, “The ring isn’t made with blood diamonds or anything, I checked.” The silence, for what Matt thinks is the first time in Kelly’s life, makes him nervous. 

It doesn’t last long though; a smile creeps onto Stella’s face. “Took you long enough,” she whispers to him, their foreheads pressed together. 

“Is that a yes?” 

“ _Hell_ _yes_ ,” she laughs, her smile now wider and pulling towards her ears. As soon as the word slips out, Matt and the others erupt in cheers and shouts. Stella kisses Kelly, then they stand back up and are met with their friends swarming around them. “We’re engaged!” Stella screams excitedly and is met with the same enthusiasm from all her friends. 

Joe whistles, Gallo jumps up and down from the outskirts of the circle trying to get in, Sylvie frantically claps and cheers. She even comes up to him and punches him in the shoulder. “Matt Casey! I cannot believe you hid this from us,” she scorns him playfully. 

“Right,” he laughs nervously. “Sorry about that.” 

“Hey, go easy on him, Vie,” Severide calls out in Matt’s defense from the center of the circle. “He helped me. You should be thanking him.” He breaks out of the circle and gives him a hug. Willingly. Which means a lot, for Kelly, he realizes. 

“Oh, fine,” she sighs, feigning frustration. “I guess I could manage to do that.” She ruffles his hair and then joins back into the circle, hopping into conversation with Gallo and Ritter. 

His arm reaches out to wrap around Gabby’s waist again, watching the group fawn over Stella’s ring and pat Kelly on the back, but feels her flinch under his touch. “You okay?”

“Uh… yeah,” she nods while blinking. 

He knows she’s lying. That much is obvious. But Gabby’s never been one for talking, always taking a preference to the silence. She’s a lot like Severide in that sense. So, begrudgingly, Matt drops it. He does the same thing he did for Kelly and stays with her the entire time, sticks to her side like glue. It bugs him that she won’t open up about whatever feelings this engagement set off on her and he gets that same feeling in his stomach like something’s wrong. But there’s a small part of him that’s worried he’s the reason she’s upset by something that was supposed to be great news. That the reason she’s upset is that they aren’t engaged yet. Dealing with the guilt of that possibility is a lot easier to do when they have peace and quiet though, so he drops it and joins back in on the cheering and congratulates his friends. 

They stay out for another half hour, talking about wedding plans and dancing around to more music (Stella picks this time and has much better taste than Gallo). Sylvie immediately starts planning an engagement party, refusing to let Joe and Otis pitch in considering how his surprise party turned out. It’s all everyone’s talking about for the rest of the evening. Then, the lamp posts become sharper against the quickly darkening sky, so they pack things up and everyone slowly heads out before nightfall comes. 

“I’m proud of you man,” he nods, patting Kelly on the back when they’re walking back to their building. Stella and Gabby walk in front of them, arm in arm and deep in a conversation that Matt can’t hear. 

“Thanks. And you’ll be my best man, right?” 

“Of course,” he agrees right away. “I’d be honoured.”

“Cool.” He gives a short nod, plays it cool. Once they reach the lobby of their apartment building, Severide notices Gabby’s tension just as much as Matt does, even when talking to Stella, and nods between her and Matt. “You guys alright?” 

“I don’t know,” he confesses. They watch the two girls ahead of them hop onto the elevator, Matt’s eyes practically glued to Gabby as they get on behind them. He’s as worried about her as he is curious, with the same feeling that something is wrong. 

He really doesn’t understand it, the reason why she’s so nervous. He’s noticed it in the past week too, really. Especially whenever he brings anything about the future up, or about them being soulmates. This co-op is just proof that something is up with her, he just doesn’t know what. Does she think they’re going somewhere? Is she nervous he doesn’t want to marry her? Does she somehow know that he’s never considered it before? Is that why she looks like she’s on the verge of tears?

That’s the crux of it, really. He doesn’t know. He never does when it comes to her, and all of their serious moments. Figuring her out, getting her to open up to him, it’s always been hit or miss, a game of chance he was all too willing to take. Only now, he realizes that the awful, ominous feeling in his stomach has been there for a long time. Maybe, for once, he’s tired of working so hard for it. Maybe, it shouldn’t  _ have  _ to be this hard. 

He’s tired of staying in the dark. Tired of their ups and downs that feel too constant. For once, he wants to feel like they’re on equal footing. And if he’s learned anything in his life, it’s that sometimes, if things won’t come to you, you need to make things happen for yourself. 

Severide gives him a one-armed hug before they hop off the elevator and practically back to their apartment, Severide excitedly chasing Stella for a kiss. Matt stays standing next to Gabby, the elevator moving up slowly and smoothly as they wait in silence. “We need to talk,” is all he says to her, and watches her get visibly nervous again. 

She doesn’t reply, just gives a small nod and walks off the elevator with him once the doors open. Their apartment feels smaller than ever from the minute they walk in and toss their bags onto the couch. Despite everything, he feels ready. More ready than he was for their last few arguments if he’s being honest with himself. “Something’s not right. I can tell. But what I don’t understand,” he continues, “is  _ why _ . Why does Stella and Severide's engagement upset you?” 

She takes a deep breath, and Matt can tell she knows exactly what he’s talking about. “I’m not upset about the engagement. I know Kelly told you not to tell anyone, but… I don’t know, I guess it just brought up some hard truths for me. And everything about the co-op freaked me out so much that I got more upset than I should have.” 

“Ok, I get that. But why did the co-op bother you so much? Would it really be so awful? It’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon, Gabby.” 

“I, uh…” she bites her lip as soon as she speaks, almost doesn’t continue, and then does anyway. “Professor Goodwin, she offered me an exchange program yesterday. In Puerto Rico. They have a lot of kids there in need of families and so it’s sort of a big opportunity in terms of social work programs.” 

“Ok…” he follows her story cautiously. He really doesn’t like where he  _ thinks _ this is going. “So, well— what does that mean for us? You want to go to Puerto Rico together? For what, a month or two? Six months?” 

“The rest of the year.” 

“The rest of the year?!” 

“Goodwin says I can leave as early as next week. I’m already technically late to the program since it started back in September. But if things go well, I’ll already be living there once I graduate and, well...” She drifts off and Matt knows what she’s already trying to say: that it’s permanent. 

“Do you want to take it?”

“Matt…” She looks at him, guilt-ridden and nervous. 

He’s taken aback by her words, the sudden realization that follows them and makes him feel queasy. The reason why she’s lied about it. “You already accepted it.” 

She gives a small, pained nod. “I am so sorry I didn’t tell you right away. B-but you can come with me. I want you to come with me.” 

“I have things here, Gabby. A job, a life, friends. Remember? Our friends? I can’t just pass up on the opportunities I have for yours.”

“I know,” she sighs and winces. That’s not all though. No, Matt can feel there’s something else. He can smell it on her like perfume. 

“That’s the thing I’ve never understood, I guess,” he scoffs. “You just make these huge decisions without me. You decided when we talked about being soulmates and when we didn’t, then you ignored it. And now you’ve decided to go to Puerto Rico without me? I’m your  _ soulmate _ Gabby, you can’t just keep me out of your life.”

She purses her lips and blinks in shock when he mentions soulmates. He hit a nerve apparently, which means that’s the ‘ _ something else’ _ that he senses. “I’m not keeping you out of my life,” she retorts. “You’re in my life, Matt. I love you, and I care about you. But this is my career, it’s my education. And it’s  _ my _ choice to make.” 

“No, there’s a reason you didn’t tell me about this. There’s something else, I can feel it.” He’s practically begging at this point, desperate for answers. Answers to why things feel so wrong between them lately, to why this is happening to them, to why she’s been acting off. 

“Why do you think that?” Her question is insistent and she sounds almost as desperate as he does. 

“Because this shouldn’t feel so wrong!” He yells it loudly and all at once, then feels the silence hit them like a train. There’s truth to his words— a painful, sobering truth. The pit in his stomach, the string that keeps pulling him away, that’s not there unless there’s something wrong. Are they some kind of weird, soulmate anomaly? Did the universe make some giant mistake? “This,” he gestures in between them, “doesn’t feel like it did before, and not in a good way. We’re soulmates. Why does this feel so...  _ different _ ?” 

“I think you know why it does,” she admits defeatedly. 

“I want you to say it. Tell me. For once, talk to me. Just… just say it.” 

She watches him carefully, then takes a deep breath and finally lets it out. “I can’t hear it. The music. We’re… we’re not soulmates. I’m a  _ mute _ .” 

Mutes. 

Mutes are what everyone calls people who don’t have a soulmate, people who the universe doesn’t let hear the music. Oddly enough, only a small portion of mutes are actual deaf or hard of hearing people. Even  _ they  _ can feel the vibrations of the music, the same rush of chemicals that their soulmate’s brain releases. But apparently, now… Gabby hears nothing. It makes sense, really, when he puts all the clues together. She hadn’t ever tried listening to music on her own all that much during the past three weeks, and all of the music he’s heard has been while they’ve been in public places with their friends. Matt had just been so tense and eager to get it over with that he hadn’t paid enough attention to all the signs. All the stupid, blaring signs. 

The truth finally sets in, searing into his head like a brand that will never go away. There’s nothing wrong with the universe. It didn’t make any mistakes: they did. “How,” he states. A statement, not a question. A truly pained, heartbroken statement. “How could this happen? I- I heard… I heard it. You said on your birthday, tonight on the campus, and the party—”

He stutters but is interrupted by her. “Come on, Matt. There were tons of people at that party. I don’t know who’s music you’ve been hearing, but… it isn’t mine.”

“You— you’ve been lying to me? This whole time?” 

“No, no. At first I thought it was just a glitch,” she explains, the tears welling up in her eyes. “I mean, you saw me before your birthday, Matt. I was so determined to be your soulmate. I didn’t hear anything when I walked into the bathroom during that lunch break last week. I figured maybe I just needed to give it a week or two. You know, to adjust. But then... nothing happened. And it was too late to say anything.” 

“Jesus, Gabby…” he pinches his nose bridge, tries to contain everything that’s threatening to come out right now. His anger, frustration. His heartbreak. 

“I never meant for any of this to happen. Please, if you take anything away from this, know that I did not mean for this to happen. I loved you. And I wanted so badly for things to be right. But we’re not soulmates, Matt. And I know you talked a big game about soulmates not being romantic… but I couldn’t do that. It would kill me, not being able to hear anything while knowing you would be hearing someone else’s whole world. I just… I can’t do this anymore.” 

A part of him wants to scream at her that any chances they had of being together even without being soulmates was ruined the minute she lied to him. Another part of him just wants to crawl up in a hole in the ground and never leave. And a big part of him really just wants to sob uncontrollably. He ends up doing none of those, instead opting to stand in silence. Tears stream down his face only in small doses, his face souring up. He sighs, defeated and just plain tired now. 

“I know. I guess you never could, could you?” He doesn’t say it to be cruel or bitter, just lets him show he understands. He understands how much it must have been eating at her from the inside out, how much she must have hated every minute of this past week without even saying anything. He understands how she’d  _ needed _ to be soulmates more than he ever had. Even through the heartbreak, the searing anger— and even when he doesn’t want to— he  _ always  _ understands.

She nods, then looks around the room, unsure of what to do. The space between them feels even bigger now and they’re only six feet apart. 

“So… what happens now? Now that we’re- we’re over?” He says it like a question because a part of him still doesn’t understand those words yet.  _ We’re over _ . 

“I don’t leave until Saturday. I never had much stuff here anyway so packing won’t be hard. I’ve already packed up most of my clothes while you weren’t looking,” she tries teasing, the joke falling flat. “Uh… I’ll pack things up and stay at Sylvie’s for a few days with her and her roommates. Jimmy and Jessica won’t mind. I’ll say my goodbyes there.” 

“Right.” In all the chaos, the hurt of being lied to, the pain of him and Gabby being over after nearly three years together, he had almost forgotten about their friends. Gabby leaving is going to break them, although they certainly won’t be as hurt as Matt feels right now. Except for maybe Sylvie. She and Gabby have always been close. Somehow, he just knows she’ll take Gabby leaving to heart. 

She turns to go pack the rest of her things, the two of them still achingly silent and processing their relationship ending the way it just did, but Matt turns to her again. “Uh, Gabby?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m... I’m sorry.” Matt sees the irony in apologizing after being the one who was lied to, but he feels the need to say it for some reason. He and Gabby were amazing, and a part of him does really still love her. But he’s sorry for everything. Not because it’s all his fault-- they’re both to blame for this, really-- but because he feels awful about it regardless. 

“Don’t be sorry,” she replies sorrowfully. “It’s ok. It’s just… it’s  _ ok _ .” 

The rest of the night is pretty awful. He hardly says a word to Gabby as she takes her clothes and all the hygiene products she needs and heads to Sylvie’s place. She offers to break the news to the rest of the group and Matt doesn’t fight her on that. He’s still processing the breakup himself, and the soul-crushing reality that now he has no idea who his soulmate is, so he doesn’t need that on his plate too. He also makes her promise to text him as soon as she gets to Sylvie’s place because even now that they’ve been broken up for an hour or so, he still does care about her and her well-being. That, to Matt, is the worst part of it all. He sits in bed alone that night, the warmth of her not there for the first time since she first moved in, and soaks in that fact. The fact that, after she lied to him and kept these major choices from him, that he still loves her. He doesn’t want to be together anymore. No, they can’t go back to that. He’s been feeling it for some time now, the small pull that had told him things weren’t right; that they didn’t fit anymore. But there’s still a lot of love there, and a lot of good memories before the idea of soulmates destroyed them from the inside out. 

He sleeps really easily that night, only because the fight drains all the energy out of him. When he wakes up in the morning, the campus news isn’t on. He can still hear the birds outside his window, only instead of the sweet sparrows of summer, it’s glum and raspy crows cawing in the background. His phone lights up on the nightstand, texts from Sylvie and the rest of his friends freaking out about Gabby leaving so soon. They’re going to miss her. Not nearly as much as Matt will miss her, but they’ll miss her either way. Sylvie, in her usual fashion, is checking up on him constantly, asking if he needs anything, and Severide offers to have one of their blunt chats.  _ Whatever _ . He’ll deal with them later. For now, all he focuses on is the texts from Gabby saying that she’s coming by after class to pick up the rest of her things.

The days pass by slowly after that. Working extra shifts during the next few days brings him some relief. He’s almost able to forget everything for a split second until he comes home and notices all of Gabby’s things that are now gone, disappeared into the night. But, even when he’s dealing with being left by the woman was in love with for so long, he still doesn’t miss a single class. 

Gabby calls him on the day before she leaves asking for a ride to the airport and Matt reluctantly agrees. At least then, he’ll get to say goodbye to her. He picks her up in the car they used to share and drives her to the airport, even gets out with her and walks her to the terminal. They’re fairly quiet for the whole ride there, keeping the conversation only to her departure and the exchange program. Goodwin was thrilled that she took the offer, apparently, and had made Gabby promise to email her with an update once she arrived in Puerto Rico. Gabby turns to him when they reach the luggage carousel, the small pile of luggage at her side as she exhales regretfully. “Matt…” 

“I know,” he nods, because he already knows she’s going to say she loves him. It’s weird, really. He’s heartbroken and angry, but he should be a lot more angry right now. She lied to him about the most important thing in the world, pushed him away, and is now leaving. He should be absolutely livid. But his anger is nothing compared to just how hopeless he feels. If he can’t have any control over their relationship anymore, the least he can do is control how they say goodbye. “I loved you too.”  _ Loved _ . He never knew his own words could hurt him so much. 

“I’ll never find someone like you, Matt Casey. Never.” She gives a sorrowed smile, the tears streaming down as she wraps her arms around him. “And whoever your soulmate is, I hope… I hope they make you happy. You’ll find everything you want in life, Matt. I know you will.” 

“So will you. Seems you already have,” he tries joking, but it falls flat. The seriousness of the moment ruins any attempt at humour. “I hope you find what you were looking for in Puerto Rico.” 

“Thank you. I just…  _ thank you,” _ she repeats. “And hey, say goodbye to everyone for me, will you?”   
  
“Uh, tell them yourselves.”

She’s about to grab her bags again, but she hears loud footsteps and screaming coming from the terminal hall they’d just finished walking down. As a departing gift, Matt had arranged for one last group get-together to say goodbye to Gabby at the airport. They had agreed, as a favour to him more than for her, but seeing the faces of all their friends frantically hurrying towards them makes Gabby smile and cry even more. “Wait! Wait!” Joe and Otis shout out from the back of the group as they all run together. Stella’s ring sparkles in the sunlight coming through the windows, Gallo and Ritter tag along nervously, a little out of place. “You think you could leave without saying goodbye to us?” 

“You guys are here? I…” Gabby’s at a loss for words, but Matt just gives a bashful shrug. 

  
“I thought they should come too.” The group finally catches up to them, it only takes one brief moment of silence before Severide is pulling both Matt and Gabby into a group hug. 

Matt stays there for a while, letting his friends lift him up with this one, big embrace. There, he can wallow in his hurt without fear of judgment, even if only for a moment. There, he’s with the people who love them even when things are tense between Gabby and the rest. There he’s with his friends. There, he’s with his  _ family _ . And Gabby leaving won’t change that, no matter how much it hurts in the moment. 

All nine of them stay there in the middle of the airport hugging for way too long before pulling away. “Thank you all for coming, really. I... It means more to me than you’ll ever know,” she thanks them tenderly.

“We wouldn’t miss it,” Sylvie replies, the tears streaming down her face. 

Severide, as Gabby’s old friend, hands her something from the small shoulder bag he’s carrying. A framed picture of him, Gabby, and Leslie Shay. “Just so you don’t forget where you came from.”

Gabby winces, the tears falling even harder. She pulls Severide into a quick, firm hug. This time, he doesn’t try and squirm free or resist, but simply hugs her back. “Thank you,” she whispers into his ear before pulling away.

Then, Gabby says her goodbyes to everyone individually and picks up her bags again once the airline starts calling out her flight number. “That’s me.” 

She turns to Matt, and his cheek becomes freezing cold at the spot where she places a tender kiss. Watching her turn around and walk away is hard. Everyone huddles around him again, a ball of warmth and solidarity standing strong as the planes soar by outside. 

Just like that, Gabriela Dawson is gone from his life.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is here everyone! It's a bit short in comparison to the last chapter, but it's a good one. We're diving in right away folks, I really hope you like it :)

_ “CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Soulmate Studies in the Modern World will be in the course list next semester for those interested in studying the history and science behind what we know as soulmates.”  _

The fall leaves lie on the ground decaying as October comes, disappearing into the earth along with Matt’s old life. 

He starts to spiral after Gabby leaves. His friends try to check on him and keep him in the loop about the most mundane things in an attempt to distract him, even when he doesn’t want to be bothered. Stella and Severide are blessed by proximity, so they drop meals off at his front door and invite him over a lot. He doesn’t accept half their invitations though, not wanting to intrude. He misses out on the next few potlucks too, and the ones he does go to feel awkward. Besides, whenever he’s not eating or sleeping or in class, he’s at the library anyway. It seems to be the only place he feels at peace, nowadays, the only place he feels like himself. Whenever he’s there, that pulling sensation in his chest gets fainter and fainter, which offers him some relief. Sylvie stops by more frequently than the rest of them and brings notes from the class they have together when he misses some by accident (and from ones he misses on purpose too). Nearly a month passes and he still doesn’t reply to Boden about the co-op program. It’s not something he wants to think about right now. When he pictured his future, he had a clear image of where he was going. And in only a matter of weeks, that whole image was shattered. So thinking about his future isn’t something he wants to do right now. Instead, he spends more cash than he cares to admit on beer and throws himself into his work again. His co-workers might be old and scraggly and rude, but at least they don’t ask questions. 

On Halloween, he hooks up with some girl named Naomi. They meet at some big Halloween party that Joe and Otis throw, with the loud music and sweaty bodies and alcohol all combining to make it one horribly bad idea. She isn’t the only one, even if she is the last. Matt gets into a string of hookups and one-night stands. One, with an old friend from high school who’s in town for a weekend, one he sees walking out of Otis’s computer coding class, which ends up getting a little messy, and a bunch of others with women he doesn’t remember all that well. Severide chastises him for it, calling Matt 'The Old Severide' before he met Stella. But Naomi is smart and sweet and perfectly great, and Matt does feel something when he asks her to come back to his place. And she definitely  _ isn’t _ his soulmate. Which is part of the reason why he hooks up with her, even if they agree to call it off after that and pretend it never happened. 

He’s tired of the soulmates thing. If he’s being honest, most of the pain he’s feeling is from that rather than of Gabby leaving. It’s a fucked up fact, but it’s true. He’d loved Gabby, and he misses her, but he’d had the closure he needed. Sure, she was familiar, and their relationship became like a habit to him, no matter how toxic it got. Maybe it’s because he knows his soulmate is somewhere out there, a blank face in a crowd of blurry strangers. Maybe it’s because he’d been sort of miserable in the last months of their relationship. But through all of it, he’s angrier about the time. God, all of the _ time  _ he’s spent thinking Gabby Dawson would be his soulmate. It’s enough to make him want to scream and cry. Nearly three years of his life, in just one simple moment, are flushed down the drain. Everything they’d been trying to build up to, it’s over. He has to start from scratch. And that pull he feels in his heart towards something he doesn’t know? It doesn’t leave when Gabby does either. It just gets worse. He does some research and finds out it’s apparently what some people feel when they don’t find their soulmate for extended periods of time.  _ God _ , he thinks.  _ If Joe has been feeling this for nine months then it’s a miracle he hasn’t gone clinically insane.  _ He hears things though, songs that flow into his ears from thin air. It’s not much to go off of, just snippets from really mainstream songs that pretty much anyone would listen to. One day, he hears the local Chicago radio station being played and gets the most excitement he’s had in a long time, but it disappears quickly and makes him feel desperate and hopeless again. So he spins into a bitter spiral. 

Then, talks of the engagement party start to go around. 

It’s Sylvie’s idea, as it always is when it comes to anything that requires planning and organizing. Everyone’s missing Gabby, almost more than he does, but Sylvie argues that it’s all the more reason to throw Stella and Severide an engagement party. Matt believes her exact words are  _ ‘a little morale booster’ _ . And since it’s officially November now, the weather is just as depressing as he is, so it’s much needed. He accepts, obviously, to show support for his best friend. Besides, he wouldn’t be much of a best man if he missed out on it. And the stash of booze Kelly has in their pantry is an added bonus too. He wants to buy an engagement gift for them— as does everyone else— but Stella demands that nobody spends a penny on gifts and claims their presence is enough of a present. Matt chuckles at how cliché it sounds but follows Stella’s orders anyway. She’s nice, but he’s learned through Kelly that she can be tough and scary when she wants to be. 

This time, the group goes all out for this party. 

The decorations he sees when he walks into their apartment are a lot nicer than the ones for his birthday. He was never one for fancy things anyway but he’s got to admit, it’s nice. There’s soft love ballad’s playing, and people cheer out congratulations every now and then. Their apartment is filled with people from Stella and Kelly’s classes, other people they aren’t as close with (and a few that Matt recognizes). Matt tries to count the number of people but gets a headache after he reaches 30. The balloons aren’t half-assed, although Matt suspects that has something to do with the fact that Joe and Otis were whining earlier about being kicked off party planning duties by Sylvie. Deep dish pizza boxes are scattered across the table and there’s a big sign in fancy cursive letters. There’s champagne out on tables as opposed to the regular mix of whatever they can find in the pantry. Matt takes a glass before he even gets the chance to say hello to Stella and Kelly. He’s going to need it to get through this. No matter how happy he genuinely is for them, lately, they seem to do nothing but remind him of everything he’s lost. 

“Hey, Case, you made it!” Severide shouts from across the apartment and Matt chugs the rest of his drink before he finds Severide and hugs him. 

“Yeah, congratulations again, man,” he laughs heartily. He might be feeling miserable right now, but he really is happy beyond relief for his friends, so he stomachs his bitterness.

“Thanks. And hey, you’re going to be okay. You know that, right?” He gives Matt an encouraging look that Matt takes a little offense to. 

“Yeah, I guess. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just ever since Gabby left-- and the news about your soulmate…” Severide’s voice drifts off, but Matt doesn’t need to hear the rest. He knows what’s coming anyway. “I don’t know. We’re just worried about you,” he finishes. “You haven’t been the same.”

“You guys all talked about this?” 

  
“Well, yeah. Believe me, you’re lucky it’s just me who’s talking to you about this right now. I had to talk Sylvie out of holding an intervention for you,” he chuckles. “We just know how tough this has got to be.”

“She left you guys too,” he rebuttals. “I mean, it was my fault she left, but she left all of you.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Matt…” 

“Look, I’m fine. I swear. I’m just here to have a good time and celebrate you guys getting engaged. And preferably, to  _ not  _ think about Gabby. Or soulmates. Hell, soulmates are all I’ve been thinking about for the past month. I just want to forget about all of it, okay?” 

“Okay,” he replies. Matt locks eyes with him and sees how much Kelly just… gets it. Even Severide, ever the heartbreaker, knows what it’s like to be the one who gets heartbroken. So Severide drops it after that, because he  _ understands _ . “Beer’s in the fridge if you don’t want the fancy champagne,” he reminds Matt.  _ Oh yeah _ , Matt thinks. Severide is  _ definitely  _ a good friend.

He downs the rest of the champagne, needing the buzz, and then runs into Stella on the way to the fridge, dropping a quick hello before passing through the group of people she’s talking to. Joe and Otis, as always, are plastered to the Wii console and Matt can hear the rigorous game of table tennis they’re caught up in, Gallo and Ritter waiting behind them for their turn and cheering them on. But he doesn't see Sylvie anywhere and he finds it weirdly unsettling. Presumably, she’s the one who organized this thing. So why can’t he see her in the swarm of people?

Sylvie is this whole other thing. Matt has sort of been mopey and bitter for the past two weeks, mainly out of guilt and pain. He reverts back to his usual habit of retreating into himself and internalizing everything, the same thing that had pushed Gabby away from him, and hadn’t been responsive to many of his friends. Or their calls. Or texts. Or anything. Sylvie had to practically bust down his door for him to let her in when she first stopped by. Honestly, he hasn’t been the greatest friend this past week or two and there’s no excuse for that. But he can’t help but worry that Sylvie blames him for her leaving. She and Gabby have always been close and he drove her all the way to Puerto Rico, essentially. So why shouldn’t Sylvie be mad at him? 

He sighs and takes a sip of beer out of the bottle he pulls from their fridge, looking out at the crowd of friends. It’s a strange feeling that overcomes him. Surrounded by people, chatter, and noise. He hasn’t left his apartment for a social event like this in weeks and yet he’s never felt more lonely. He’s there, talking to nobody like some outsider looking in. One of them could even be his soulmate and he wouldn’t have the slightest clue. It’s exhausting, it’s frustrating, and above all else,  _ it’s really fucking lonely _ .

It only takes him 10 minutes to get through more champagne and beer that he can count. They don’t mix well together, but they do a good job at keeping him buzzed and numb. And he likes that a lot better than the sharp, painful sting of heartbreak, so he keeps drinking as much as he can. Eventually, he gets drunk enough to forget momentarily about everything. He lets his mind go fuzzy and his words get loopy and slurred. He even plays Gallo in a game of Wii tennis and beats him, but it gets cut short by the strange looks he’s getting from people. He sort of enters into angry drunkenness after that. He doesn’t like himself right now. The things he’s doing, the way he’s acting, the fact that even drunk he can’t be happy. It all just seems to make him angry. Which makes him drink more, and then in turn makes him even angrier. It’s a vicious cycle. 

Thankfully, Stella and Kelly are so preoccupied talking to some people from Stella’s Women’s Studies class that they don’t notice Matt getting loud and annoyed. By some miracle, he’s actually managed to stay clear of them for the whole night. 

After a while, it starts to get dark. The number of people there stays the same, but Matt hears the opening and closing of the front door and cheers for some reason. Honestly, he’s sort of a shitty drunk. But as he gets closer to the door, he sees Sylvie walking in with a bag in her hand. “Sylvie,” he cheers, his words even more slurred than before. “You disappeared on me. And then- well you’re here now. Where were you?” 

“Yeah, we ran out of ice,” she explains cautiously, moving to the fridge and dumping the ice in the freezer box as he follows her. “What’s uh… what’s up with you?” 

“I’m a little drunk,” he admits bashfully. “Ok fine, I’m  _ a lot _ drunk.” He can’t stop the snort of laughter that comes out of him, and she laughs too, albeit to cover how worried she looks. 

Her laughter dissipates almost immediately though, and she pulls Otis and Joe by their arms. Matt looks behind him, surprised that he’d been so unaware of his two friends standing behind him. “You idiots,” she hisses, her attempt at a whispered shout failing miserably. “You promised you would keep him from getting hammered tonight!”

“You told us to keep an eye on him. We’ve been shadowing him the entire night until Joe got distracted grilling people to see if they were his soulmate. And how the hell were we supposed to know you meant to keep him sober?!” Otis defends himself and Joe. “The guy’s got a right to drink, after all. He found out he’s gotta start looking for his soulmate from scratch. If anything, I’m surprised he’s not drunker.” 

“Oh my god, you guys are  _ so not _ helpful,” she chastises.

“Hey, you guys have been following me?” Matt asks, finally realizing that his friends have probably been just behind him the whole night. “Not cool, guys! I’m fine, I swear.” 

“And Severide said I was crazy for wanting to have an intervention,” she mumbles under her breath. 

“We’ll take care of this, Sylvie,” Joe promises her, “you can get back to the party.” 

She furrows her brows, scrunches her nose the way she does when she’s in class and is really concentrating, and then sighs. “No, no it’s alright. I can take care of him. You guys go on, have fun. Make sure Stella and Severide know that I’m getting him out of here.” 

“Copy that,” Joe and Otis nod, completely in unison (they’ve done that before and it freaks Matt out every time) before turning back to the sea of people. 

“The last three years of my life have been a total waste,” he pouts, kicking at the ground and nearly losing his balance. When he stabilizes himself again, he shakes his head and continues. “I’m alone! And I have no way to find my soulmate, no future. I probably don’t have friends now either. Woohoo,” he cheers, like he’s celebrating something, and doesn’t understand when Sylvie looks at him with that same sweet, sympathetic look. 

“You’re not alone, Matt,” she comforts him half-heartedly, wrapping her arm around his shoulders as he leans on her, his balance out of whack. She grunts a little at his weight as they walk along. “Come on,” she huffs, partly out of breath. “Let’s get you back to your apartment.” 

“It’s just one floor up, I can handle it,” he protests, but his words are so slurred and mushed together and he knows that if he were sober, he wouldn’t trust him. So he doesn’t wait for her to reply, just shrugs and accepts defeat almost right after. “Fine.”

They stumble their way into the elevator, Matt rambling loudly nearly the entire time. She humours him and all of his drunken madness, keeps him happy and talking. He takes his keys out of his pocket after she coaxes him into trying to open the door, but the key misses the keyhole too many times and she gently takes the keys out of his hand to do it herself. 

Eventually, they get through the door. Matt makes a beeline for the couch but Sylvie herds him back towards his bedroom. “Come on,” she sighs, “you need sleep. It’s getting late.”

“You’re mad at me aren’t you?” He asks, a low, cheeky laugh escaping. 

Sylvie crinkles her brows again. Clearly, she doesn’t find it funny. “What makes you think I’m mad at you?” 

“You stopped coming by,” he pouts, waving a drunken finger at her. “It’s fine- it’s fine, I swear. I’ve been a really crappy friend, I deserve it. Everyone else is probably pissed too.” He shrugs, kicking his shoes off. 

“None of us are mad at you, Matt. We’re just worried. It’s been rough for you, we know that. And no offense, but you haven’t been handling it all that well. I just… I didn’t want to be another painful reminder of Gabby.” 

“Pfft, Gabby,” he laughs. “Gabby is so… I mean, that's not…” he gets serious for a second, swallowing hard. 

“I miss her too.” She says it because she thinks it’s what he’s going to say. It should be, but it isn’t. 

“The last three years of my life have been a waste,” he repeats for the second time that night, less excited this time.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” she shakes her head. “Trying to be happy, even if it’s with the wrong person? That’s never a waste.” 

Matt’s drunk. Really, awfully,  _ totally  _ drunk. But Sylvie’s words ring through his head, clearer than ever, and he really  _ understands  _ them. He lets them sink in and, for the first time that night, is actually thinking clearly about them. Which is probably why he starts to feel like an idiot immediately afterward. Because she’s right.  _ Trying to be happy is never a waste.  _ Maybe it’s not about soulmates. Hell, thinking it was about that is what destroyed him and Gabby. Maybe it’s about more than that. His time with Gabby was good. It was something intense and passionate, and important. It taught him a lot of valuable things. And yes, he still misses her like hell. But saying he regrets the last three years of his life would be a total lie, because he doesn’t. Even when they were screaming and yelling, even when their hearts were broken, it was all worth it. He’s been so busy focusing on all those awful memories that he had completely ignored all of the amazing ones that came before it. And now that he remembers them, separates them from all the shitty ones, it doesn’t seem so bad. If anything, it was sort of beautiful. 

It still hurts like hell, though. And even though he realizes this in the moment, he’s too drunk for it to stick for long or to form his thoughts into coherent words. He just nods enthusiastically. “Yeah. Ok.” 

Just then, his knees almost give out and he leans on Sylvie for support again, too drunk to even be embarrassed by it. He feels Sylvie drag him through the threshold of his bedroom door, gently helping him forward. 

“Okay you need to get to bed,” she grunts, letting his weight slide off her as he crashes onto the bed. He doesn’t want to go to bed just yet though and sits upright. 

She looks at him pointedly, but doesn’t bother lecturing him and sighs heavily instead. “I’ll get you some water.” She gets up off the bed where she was sitting with him and Matt hears the tap in his kitchen. Sylvie comes back moments later, taking Matt’s hand and wrapping it around the glass. “Drink,” she orders gently. He’s too out of it to fight her, so he takes a sip of water and swallows before he starts laughing to himself again.    


“What are you laughing about now?” She asks, without a hint of judgment in her voice; just curiosity. 

“You’re always taking care of me,” he laughs, waving his pointer finger at her again. “With your crazy— your crazy mom friend powers.” He shakes his head, not really thinking about his words all that much. Even drunk though, he knows they’re true and he finds it almost amusing in the moment, snorting at the idea. 

“Well somebody’s got to,” she replies. There’s no sympathy or pity in her eyes anymore, just something raw and real and fierce that is awfully close to protectiveness. “Besides, that’s all anyone wants, right?” She continues, looking down and taking the now empty glass of water from his hand. “Someone who takes care of them, who they can take care of too. People who can rely on each other. I mean, that’s what soulmates are meant to be, at least.” 

“Gabby never wanted that,” Matt realizes. “She loved me, I know that…but I guess she loved her independence more. I don’t know…” 

“Some people just want different things,” Sylvie shrugs sympathetically. “Come on, you need sleep.” 

“Alright, alright,” he groans tiredly. “I’ll go to sleep. You can leave now, you’re probably tired too. Go, save yourself.” He gives a fake salute and tries to ignore the wave of nausea it sends through him. 

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” she reassures him. “I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

“Sylvie—” He goes to protest but is interrupted by the same pointed stare that tells him she’s not taking no for an answer. Then, he feels his energy wearing off and his eyes start to droop shut, so he caves. “Ok, fine.” 

“Goodnight,” she nods once Matt gets under the blankets and then leaves his room. She leaves the lamp on but turns the light off, and her face is the last thing he sees before he crashes into a deep sleep. 

The next morning, he wakes up expecting to be more hungover than he ends up being. His head is still pounding like a drum and everything still feels too bright, but it’s manageable. Even for a school day. He sits up slowly and his hand flies to his head to hold it. The first thing he notices is the glass next to his bed, now completely full again. Sylvie must have refilled it, he thinks. Which he’s grateful for, because he hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until he takes a sip from it, and then downs the whole thing at once. 

She’s on his couch when he wakes up, still fast asleep in the same clothes. He feels sort of bad about it, truth be told. He must have really been a handful last night if she’s this tired. To make up for it, he finds the Lucky Charms in his cupboard and makes two bowls. Because nothing says  _ ‘I’m sorry for getting drunk at our friends’ engagement party and almost ruining the whole night’ _ like sugary cereal designed for six-year-olds.

He lets her sleep in, checks her phone to make sure she doesn’t have any early morning classes (her phone constantly sends her reminders without even having to unlock the phone, thankfully). But as he sits there and eats his cereal, he slowly starts to remember their conversation last night and the surprising weight to it.  _ Trying to be happy, even if it’s with the wrong person, is never a waste of time. _ That’s what she had said. 

That phrase alone makes the weird tug in his heart go away. For the first time in a while, he feels something that he can only assume is a good sign: peace. He’s at peace with his relationship with Gabby, no matter how hard it hurt to watch her go. He’s at peace with his old life and the familiarity it brought him, he’s had the closure he needed. And, for now, he’s at peace with not knowing who his soulmate is. Soulmates, for all their power, aren’t the most important things in the world.  _ His friends are _ . And maybe Matt’s taken advantage of that a little, but he vows to never make that mistake again. There’s so little in life that’s guaranteed. Soulmates being one of them nearly drove him insane. So maybe he needs to do a better job at making sure there’s more he can be guaranteed than that. Maybe… maybe he just needs to pick up the pieces and start his new life. One where he’s happy. 

He finds his laptop and sets it on the kitchen table, opening his email straight away. His fingers type in Connie’s email, a goodbye to his old life and a step towards the new flying its way onto the screen. 

_ Dear Connie,  _

_ Please tell Headmaster Boden that I’m accepting the co-op. Life is short, and I can’t take anything for granted. So I look forward to whatever this brings me.  _

_ Thanks,  _

_ Matt Casey  _

It’s not much, but it’s a start. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress is being made! I hope you guys like this chapter, big strides will be made soon in terms of Brettsey so buckle up and, as always, comment your thoughts :)

_ “CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: If you’re missing any headphones, earbuds, speakers, or other devices, please make sure to look in the lost and found bin at the University Center.” _

Over the next few days, Matt really starts to make it up to his friends. 

It doesn’t take all that much since they insist they were never actually mad at him, but they understand that it’s what Matt needs to do to ease his guilt so they let him spoil them with extra kindness and small gifts. He lets people in again, trusts them and sticks to his promises. Hell, he even comes to the weekly potluck dinners again. He’s still a little reluctant to open up, but Sylvie doesn’t hesitate to make sure he talks about it with her when she wakes up the morning after his show at the engagement party. And, to make him feel better, he does the same. She opens up about having a late December birthday (still one month away) and the exhausting toll it’s taken on her. It’s a sentiment he can definitely relate to. Everyone deals with soulmates differently. Matt takes the route of ignoring it and keeps it out of sight (or out of earshot, he should say) out of mind, Joe practically becomes Sherlock Holmes while trying to figure his soulmate out, and Sylvie pines endlessly over someone that she doesn’t even know yet. But he decides that, since she made sure he wasn’t alone in his time of need, he’d do the same for her. Soon, they’re walking to their shared class on the daily and laughing at their misery. Sylvie guesses that the only way to get through the pain is to find a way to make it funny. Or, at the very least, to be able to laugh at  _ yourself  _ every now and then. Matt isn’t much of a peppy guy, but he likes the feeling of being able to laugh again. 

The talking isn’t just with her either. The morning after the engagement party, even while still hungover, Matt goes down to Kelly and Stella’s apartment to talk with him. He and Severide, on the rare occasion, get high together. It’s a shitty habit, he knows that. But old guys in the 60's used to smoke pipes together all the time, and it’s not like he and Kelly are addicted to smoking or anything, so they make it a thing. It’s a rare occurrence but sometimes, when things get tense and they don’t have anyone to talk to, it helps to destress. And Matt’s had more than his fair share of stress lately. So he calls Severide up and they lounge around Matt’s apartment, letting their minds get cloudy and calm as they talk things out with each other. Severide spills about the pressure of planning a fancy wedding, Matt talks about the string of stupid decisions he’s made recently, and they slowly decompress. It’s reserved exclusively for the two of them. No one else really knows about it, and those who do (like Stella, who caught them once during their sophomore year eating her hot Cheetos while bugged out of their minds) know better than to ask to join in. It’s another form of healing, a tradition just between him and Severide that remains untouched and untainted. He likes it. 

It doesn’t take longer than a day for Connie to reply on Boden’s behalf about the co-op. Boden’s thrilled about Matt taking the opportunity, but he figures out why soon after and sympathizes with him. He assures Boden that he’s alright because, well… he is. For the first time since she left, he’s really, truly alright. Maybe it’s a side effect of having a soulmate, the increased sense of closure he’s feeling. He doesn’t know. But their time, no matter how great it was, is over now. And out there, someone is meant for him. And, if he’s being honest with himself, he started falling out of love with Gabby months before they broke up. Boden understands and, in the weirdest turn of events of the year, he tells Matt he’s proud of him. Proud of him for moving on, for accepting the co-op, all of it. The co-op is a great program too, and Matt’s first day goes really well. He learns so much in just one day which gives him hope. Slowly but surely over the next four days, his life starts to be pieced together again. He starts living for himself and not solely to find his soulmate. It’s new; it’s liberating, no matter how slowly it’s coming back to him.

His classes are going well, his co-op is amazing. He hasn’t had the heart to clear out Gabby’s extra things in his apartment, but at least he won’t have to do it alone. He texts the group chat whenever he’s feeling lonely and watches Gallo and Ritter send the most confusing memes that somehow still make him laugh until he remembers Gabby left the group chat. And worse, that he doesn’t think their friends have been messaging her at all. Closure works in different ways for different people, but it still stings. He talks about it to Severide, he works hard at his co-op and his classes in general, and he talks to Sylvie. Who, throughout all of this, is still being the mom friend of the century, listens the entire time, and just… understands it. 

Gabby’s things, though. It’s one pesky thing that picks at his brain like a fly on a windshield. He sees the few pictures still on the wall, knows there are probably still some things in boxes in his closet, and feels her looming presence in the apartment. It’s distracting, how much he’s putting it off. Procrastination has never been a good look on him. 

He’s walking out of his Urban Planning class with Sylvie next to him, after enduring the most boring lecture, and he can’t take his mind off of it. It has to be done. He knows it’s going to be a pain in the ass for him to have to go through all of that stuff though and groans. 

“What’s up with you?”

“Huh?” He almost forgets that Sylvie’s walking next to him, her footsteps quiet, and his mind on other things. 

“You just groaned. I know that lecture was a little boring but I didn’t think it was  _ that  _ boring,” she laughs. 

“It was  _ extremely _ boring,” he corrects her, a little laugh escaping his lips, “you just like school too much.” 

“Very funny.” She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t answer my question, though.” 

“What question?”

“ _ Why are you groaning? _ ” She repeats. 

“Right, that. Ugh, it’s stupid. I have some of Gabby’s stuff still in my place that I need to get rid of,” he explains. 

“That doesn’t sound stupid at all.” She replies dead serious, with all the tenderness and kindness in the world crammed into her tone. It makes Matt feel weirdly validated. It shouldn’t feel so foreign to him, but having his feelings validated is another thing that was never guaranteed with Gabby. “Why don’t we all come over? More hands means you can get it done quicker. And it’ll make a crappy night way more fun for you. We can play games or something, it’ll be fun!” 

“I don’t know…” he hesitates because he doesn’t know if his friends are up for it. “It’s a Friday, we normally do our potluck dinners. And I’ve missed a few already...” 

“Don’t be silly, we can go one week without Joe and Otis failing miserably at cooking. I’m texting the group chat,” she yanks off her gloves and holds them out for Matt to take. He holds them for her while she types in the chat, her thumbs flying over the keyboard. They stop walking for a moment while she watches everyone reply. Matt has to laugh a little at how quickly everyone hops on board. Joe and Otis should be in class together right now, not texting. “They’re in! It’s official: it’s game night at your place.” 

“Ok then,” he nods along with it. Honestly, he should have expected that he’d be roped into this, but he doesn’t mind in the slightest. His friends are the best things in his life right now. He’s only seen them individually-- the occasional visit to Severide, Sylvie in class, Ritter and Gallo on campus-- but seeing them altogether for the first time since the party will be great for him. Seeing the group chat again though, he’s reminded that Gabby’s not on there anymore and decides to take a risk and ask. “I know Gabby left the group chat but she’s been talking to you guys still, right?” 

“Uh, a little, sure,” she nods, not at all convincingly. Matt wants to say something, but his fear that they’re mad at her for the effect her leaving has had on him is enough to send him into a guilty spiral, so he zips his mouth shut. “Hey, do you think we can go to that cute café a few blocks from here to study? It’s getting cold out and I study so much better with hot cocoa and danishes.” 

“Sure,” he nods, readjusting his shoulder bag as they start to walk again. He makes a mental note to bring up the Gabby situation later, and leaves it at that, because, well. Hot cocoa and danishes actually don't sound half bad right now, even with the afternoon sun beaming down on them.

They decide to take the long route when they walk over to the small little coffee shop. It’s filled with string lights and the menu is in cursive chalk letters when they walk in. They actually have work to do, so Matt takes her bag for her and finds a spot in the back of the café while she orders. His mind is still on her comment about the group’s contact with Gabby though, and he starts to get curious. They wouldn’t just ghost her, would they? He knows he’s been visibly hurting but he’s moved on from all that. Gabby was part of their group, they shouldn’t just shut her out. 

He stares off as she walks over to the table, danishes and hot chocolate in hand. “The barista is cute,” she says immediately as she sits down. Her tone is more disappointed than excited though, and she elaborates when Matt’s eyebrows furrow. “It’s not like it matters though, because chances are he isn’t my soulmate.  _ Ugh _ , I wish my birthday would just come already.” 

“Ah, don’t worry. You’re going to find your soulmate, trust me.” 

“How are you so sure?” She asks skeptically.

“I just am,” he shrugs. “If you don’t find them, they’ll find you.” 

“I doubt that,” she chuckles dryly. “I’ve sort of taken a break from listening to music unless it’s pretty generic stuff. Listening to anything that might give me away gives me the jitters.” She shudders and shakes her head, which makes Matt laugh to himself a little. “But I guess that also means my soulmate will never find me either.” 

“Trust me, you’re going to find exactly what you want. And sooner than I am, probably.” 

“You’re not actually looking, which probably doesn’t make things any better. But I’m going to be just like Joe, spending months and months trying to find out who it is.” 

“No one’s as bad as Joe,” he jokes, and she nods along. “Do you need your soulmate to be _the_ _one_ , though?” 

“Oh god no, I just want to know. I don’t care if it’s romantic or familial, or just completely as friends. I just want to know who it is. It’s your  _ soulmate, _ after all, the person who’s supposed to be linked to you. To understand you like no one else.” She gets a sparkle of excitement in her eyes as she talks about it. 

“Trust me, it’s not as glamorous as it seems,” he replies dryly. “Hearing the same music someone else hears can get tired really fast.” 

“Well you just had bad luck. I think it’s pretty clear that I am going to screw things up, no matter who my soulmate is.” 

“What makes you say that?” 

“I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of failed relationships. You remember some of them: Harrison, Greg, Antonio. Even Joe for a while.” 

“And Kyle,” he grumbles. God, Matt hated that guy. Freshman year, she dated this World Religion major, Kyle Scheffield. He has no clue what made him hate Kyle in the first place, but he can’t remember a time where he didn’t. Objectively speaking, the guy was a total douchebag. He always put Sylvie on the spot, was a textbook mansplainer, and was sort of a religious nut. And he played competitive hacky sack, for fuck’s sake. Who does that in university? He didn’t make any effort to socialize with Matt and the others either. It’s not like they wanted him too, but you should at least try to get to know your girlfriend’s friends. 

“Oh god,” Sylvie laughs bitterly, burying her face in her hands as she sits down at the spot across from Matt. “Don’t remind me. That nearly broke me.” 

“We all hated that guy anyway,” he shrugs, taking a sip of his hot chocolate. 

“What? Why didn’t any of you tell me?” She takes her glove and leans across the table to whack him playfully with it. 

“We thought you knew!” He laughs and leans back in his chair to avoid the hits. “I mean, what kind of asshole leaves their girlfriend in the middle of the night to move to Indiana and become a youth pastor without a word?”

Sylvie bites her tongue, and her cheeks flush when she can’t think of a defense. It makes Matt smile, but then thoughts of the group chat crawl back into his head soon after so he switches the topic. “On a totally separate note, I know you said you and the others have kept in touch with Gabby. But I don’t know, it doesn’t sound like you are. You guys aren’t… mad at Gabby, are you?”

“What?” Sylvie’s clearly taken aback by the change in conversation and nearly chokes on her danish. 

“I just- I know she left the group chat, but I hope everyone in the group doesn’t blame her for all of this. It’s my fault, if anything.” 

“No no, of course not!” She shakes her head sympathetically. “Things just didn’t work out, we all know that. We all missed Gabby at first and tried texting her. But the truth is, this is like Peter all over again.” Matt sighs, knowing all too well how that situation ended. In the early days when they were making a study group of Herrmann’s class, Peter Mills had joined them willingly. And he was actually dating Gabby when Matt first met her. But he transferred to a university closer to his family halfway through the semester, and pretty much ghosted them completely. It wasn’t his fault-- Matt guesses he just needed a change of pace-- but it was still weird. “None of us have heard from Gabby in weeks.”

“Really?” 

“Really,” she echoes. 

“Oh.” So if anything, it’s Gabby that’s ghosting  _ them _ . That, he understands. It also eases his guilt to no end, and he sighs with relief at the comforting knowledge that he is not to blame for this. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that. I just- I didn’t want you guys to stop being friends with her because of me.” 

“I get that. But you’re not the only one who needed closure. She did too. We all did. I think she just went about it a different way, that’s all.” 

“Still sucks, though.”

“Definitely. Watching people come and go, in and out of your life, it’s awful. You’re not alone in having that feeling.” 

“I guess I’m not, am I?”

She shakes her head and takes a bite of her danish, then panics when she almost spills crumbs on her notes. Matt laughs as he watches her wipe her notes off gently. “No,” she continues as she pulls out a pen, “you’re not. You’re not alone in any of this.” 

“I think that’s what sent me spiraling in the first place. I thought it was Gabby, but I had started the process of moving on from her before we even broke up. I was really just scared of being alone again. But I’m not alone. I have Severide and the rest of the group.”

“And your soulmate,” she teases. 

“And you. You’ve been there for me more than anyone.” 

She smiles sweetly, inhales shakily as she replies. “Like I said: somebody’s got to, right?” 

“Right.” He gives a faint smile, his heart suddenly swelling for his dear friend. 

“Now come on, we have work to do. I am never going to get through all of these notes alone.” 

Matt chuckles and nods along, diving into their work. It’s fun having a shared class with someone he genuinely likes. Normally, he has to make nice with total strangers on group work and discussion classes, and Gabby never cared much about the construction part of his classes. But having Sylvie to talk to about is refreshing. Lately, he’s talked to her about most things, really. Except, weirdly enough, about Gabby. He just hasn’t felt the need to during this past week. And Sylvie’s been the most solid friend in his life next to Severide, which he appreciates. It’s hard to find one person you understand and respect, nevermind two— or seven, for that matter. 

The soft music streams through the small coffee shop as Matt and Sylvie share notes, working in total silence for most of the time apart from the occasional work-related question. Here, it’s peaceful. He doesn’t think about whether his soulmate is hearing the music he’s hearing right now. He hardly even feels the usual side effects of soulmates: the weird tugging at his heart, the urge to listen to music, the relaxed sensation he gets in his ears. He’s just enjoying the moment and after a while, he loses track of time completely. It’s the first time he’s done that outside of the library in a long time. 

That night, he stands alone in his apartment waiting for everyone to come. He hears a brief flash of music all of a sudden, the music soaking into his ears. His soulmate, whoever they are, must be listening to music on the radio and he can hear the slow, sweet swing music of some old-timey artist he swears he’s heard before. He doesn’t try to figure out the song though, just slumps down on his couch and pushes pillows against his ears to block out the sound.   
  
This isn’t the first time he’s heard music from his soulmate, but it’s never been that specific. Most of the time it’s just music played in stores or popular songs that anyone could listen to. Before, he had been blinded by trying to make things work with Gabby that he hadn’t bothered to see that it could be anyone. And he hasn’t been paying attention to it recently, trying to solidify the other parts of his life before trying to find his soulmate, but he feels that pull in his chest for the first time in a while, like a golden string yanking him. Only this time, it doesn’t bother him. It’s as if he’s being pulled towards something instead of away from something. It’s new; it’s exciting. 

However curious he is about it, there’s nothing he can do about it now. All he does is shake the weird feeling off and push the pillows against his head even harder, groaning to block out the sound that won’t stop. Stella and Kelly knock at his door a few minutes later, right on time and he’s too lazy to get up so he shouts for them to come in. They open the door, making themselves at home. “What’s up with you, Case?” Severide doesn’t hesitate to ask when she sees him on the couch with his face buried in pillows. 

“I can hear my soulmate playing music,” he huffs.

“Have you tried piecing it together from the songs you’ve heard?” Stella suggests. 

“I can’t, they’re all popular songs. At this point, it could be anyone. Hell, it could be the homeless guy on the ramp we pass by sometimes and I wouldn’t know.” 

All Severide does is start laughing, but Stella comes over and yanks the pillows off Matt’s face. He doesn’t bother putting up much of a fight, but groans at how much brighter his apartment seems. “People listen to music all the time, you can’t avoid your soulmate forever. So start looking for them, you big baby! Now get up and show me where the boxes are.” Her tone is persistent, but he knows she’s doing this to get his mind off of things and appreciates it. 

“They’re over there.” He points over to the corner of his apartment near his bedroom door. “I brought out trash bags too. I have to clean out the closet anyway, I have too much crap I need to get rid of.” 

Severide moves to grab an empty cardboard box and hands it to Stella just as the others knock at Matt’s door all at once. He begrudgingly gets up off the couch and lets them in. “Hey, you guys made it. Come on in.”

“Sorry that we’re late. All four of us had to get a ride from this one,” he explains, gesturing to Sylvie, “and she has the music taste  _ and  _ the driving skills of an old lady.” 

“Ok, first off: it was a busy street, I didn’t want to run over anyone!” They all stumble through his door and take off their jackets as Sylvie defends herself. “And second: Matt lives two blocks away,” she keeps going as she gestures at Matt, who comes behind her to take off her jacket for her. He’s learned, over the past few weeks especially, that when Sylvie gets heated about something, she forgets to do things like tie her shoelaces or walk properly or breathe every once and a while. It’s sort of hilarious. “It’s not like we were in all that much a rush. Excuse me for not wanting to get a speeding ticket.” 

“Cyclists were passing you, Sylvie. Cyclists!” Joe points out exasperatedly, which only makes Sylvie even more flustered. 

“ _ This _ is why I moved out of yours and Otis’s dorm last year,” she quips back teasingly. “So judgemental.” 

“I thought your driving was fine,” Ritter shrugs quietly. 

“Thank you, Ritter.” She sticks her nose up at Joe and Otis triumphantly. Stella sees Sylvie from across the apartment and makes her way to the entrance, giving her a big hug for her victory as everyone else sighs in defeat and walks in.

“Now that that’s over with, boxes and trash bags are over there.” Matt points to where Kelly’s still standing. “Food and drinks are in the fridge if you want any.” 

“I’m going to need a drink,” Sylvie groans. “Driving four  _ boys  _ is enough to drive anyone crazy, even if it’s just for a few blocks. And I need the boost after we crammed so hard for class this afternoon.” Matt chuckles as she heads into his kitchen and the others start picking up boxes.    
  
“Where do we start?” Gallo asks, and they all look at him for direction. Truth be told, he has no idea where to start. This is the last of his old life they’re packing up, there’s no easy way to start. He looks around the room, eyes filled with sentiment, and then moves towards the closet filled with random junk he and Gabby had collected together over the years. 

“Here, I guess.” He picks an old pair of women’s ice skates off the middle shelf and puts them in the box. There probably wasn’t a point to her taking those skates to Puerto Rico anyway, where it hardly ever snows enough to make an ice rink. It’s not like she used them much here anyway. The one time they tried ice skating, she turned it into a massive game of grueling, cutthroat ice hockey with all their friends. At the time, he’d groaned and complained about wanting one nice night where they could just skate, but he looks back on it now with fondness and nostalgia. It’s all too real to him, but he likes the memory. Not for the Gabby of it all, not for the feelings that were once there, but for the fun they had with their friends. He was worried at first that it would do nothing but bring up pain and bitterness, but it does the complete opposite. It’s like a giant weight is being lifted off his shoulders. 

They divide up the jobs between girls and boys. Matt, Gallo, Ritter, Otis, Cruz, and Kelly all slowly pick up random things and ask Matt whether to keep it or toss it. That process takes the longest, which is why more people do it. Stella and Sylvie then take the bags to the trash chute once they’re too heavy to keep stuffing them, and the filled boxes all the way downstairs to the dumpster once they’re full.

They laugh and talk while they clean out all of the things weighing him down. But many hands make light work, and it ends up only taking them an hour to clear everything out. 

“Are we… done?” Gallo asks, his face not quite believing it. Everyone stands awkwardly on the spot around his apartment in disbelief. 

“I think so,” Matt replies. “Huh. That felt weirdly fast.” Matt doesn’t know whether he feels excited or disappointed that they finished so quickly. It’s neither; it ends up being relief more than anything. Getting this done, especially with people he cares so much about? It feels good. 

“Teamwork makes the dream work, baby,” Joe exclaims. 

“Oh god,” Otis shakes his head and pokes fun at Joe, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that. 

“Wait!” Sylvie and Stella are about to take the last box out when Sylvie spots something in the box. “Don’t tell me you’re throwing this out!” 

She holds up what she was looking at for everyone to see, the others' attention drawn in by her indignation. In her hands is the big, clanky karaoke machine that he and Gabby had bought as an impulse one night and then never actually used. It seems kind of pointless to keep it if all it’s going to do is take up space, so he had put it in the  _ “trash it”  _ pile. 

“Uh… yeah. Why wouldn’t I?” 

“This looks like so much fun! You can’t just toss away a hidden treasure like this!” 

“Why not? I never used it.” 

“You wha— ok we are using this right now, here, tonight,” she insists, getting that same excited sparkle in her eyes. 

“Amen,” Stella cheers. “Bring it on, it’s karaoke night everyone!” 

“No, no way.”

“Come on, you can’t keep hiding from your soulmate forever! Eventually, she’s going to have to realize how shitty your taste in music is, why not start now?” Stella teases. 

Sylvie puts the machine down and punches Stella’s shoulder lightly, instead choosing a different approach as she leans over the back of the couch to meet Matt’s eye. “You don’t even need to sing either. It’ll be fun, Matt, I promise.  _ Please _ ?” 

_ Shit _ . He’s going to say yes, isn’t he? “Fine,” he concedes, the group cheering in victory at a volume that makes him feel bad for his neighbours. 

“Ok, so,” Stella starts, clapping her hands together. “Who’s going first?” She takes the machine and plugs it into the wall socket where there’s open space for people to move around. Everyone starts hopping onto the couch or grabbing pillows to sit on the floor, and huddling around the machine as it beeps to life and the dust is blown off of it by Stella. 

“Otis and I call dibs!” Joe shouts out, the two best friends hopping up to untangle the two mics attached to the box. 

It only takes a few minutes for them to find a song, and it’s a horrible one at that. The music starts playing and people laugh as soon as they hear Joe coming in for the first verse of Baby Got Back.

“Oh god,” Stella laughs, pulling her phone out to record as she leans back onto Severide, the two of them on the floor. 

Matt doesn’t even want to repeat some of the lyrics. It’s catchy, sure, but sort of gross and demeaning to women. And Joe and Otis, in possibly the worst rendition of it ever, don’t even come in on time for their parts. The machine colours in the words as they go to help them keep track but even then, they stumble their way through the song awkwardly. It doesn’t matter though, because everyone’s having the time of their lives. Joe and Otis dance around as they rap, Stella and Kelly are laughing as they watch through the screen of Stella’s phone. Gallo, Ritter, and Sylvie are all cheering along, laughing and clapping fiercely. Even Matt starts to laugh. By the time Joe and Otis reach the end of the song, he completely forgets why he was going to throw that thing out in the first place. 

“Okay, who’s next?” 

“Me!” Sylvie jumps up off her spot next to Matt on the couch, leaves her drink on the coffee table and heads up to the machine. It’s not exactly filled with new and trendy songs, but Sylvie shouts, “Ooh!” as she finds a song on the list and clicks the start button. “This is my favourite song,” she raves about it, “I love Grease.” 

“Isn’t Grease that super sexist movie?” Stella chirps, her brow furrowed. 

“Sort of,” Sylvie admits. “But it’s such a good guilty pleasure! I may feel bad about watching it every time, but in the moment? Oh man, is it good. And this song is  _ amazing _ .” She hops excitedly as Hopelessly Devoted to You starts playing on the machine. 

What comes next, Matt would never have expected in a million years. The regular vocals of Olivia Newton-John are replaced with Sylvie’s as she nears the chorus, but he’d hardly be able to tell the difference. She sounds good. Like, really good. 

_ “But now there's nowhere to hide _

_ Since you pushed my love aside _

_ I'm out of my head _

_ Hopelessly devoted to you _

_ Hopelessly devoted to you _

_ Hopelessly devoted to you.” _

What the hell is happening? Matt blinks in shock, his eyes widening with every verse, every chorus, every note she hits. Her voice is sweet and golden and flows like cursive letters into his ears. He’s heard her sing once or twice before, but he doesn’t remember it being so…  _ good _ . When did she learn how to sing like that? 

_ Jesus _ . Maybe he  _ has _ been too out of touch with his friends. 

Stella’s cheering her on while recording on her phone, most likely to post it on social media. Gallo and Ritter are nodding, Gallo muttering a silent “Oh damn!” under his breath. Joe and Otis don’t look shocked and must have already known she could sing since they lived with her for a year. But Sylvie’s there and she doesn’t care. She’s having the time of her life, giggling during the instrumental pauses and clutching the microphone dramatically. She dances around, feigning heartbreak just like Sandy in Grease, and smiles goofily. Seeing her totally carefree and relaxed and bubbly makes him feel it too, the smiling and laughing spreading like wildfire across his face. 

She reaches the last chorus and the song slowly fades away to an end. Everyone cheers and claps-- Severide even whistles-- and she curtseys before hopping off of what is now the hypothetical stage in Matt’s apartment, right back onto her spot on the couch next to him. She’s breathing heavily, still exhilarated by the fun of singing her heart out. “That was so fun,” she smiles. 

“How’d you learn to sing like that?” He turns to face her on the couch, still dumbstruck. “And how come I’ve never heard you sing before?” 

“Well normally I’m not much of a performer, but I’ve had a little bit to drink,” she confesses, giggling. “You really thought it was good?” 

“It was… amazing.” There’s really no other word for it. She sings like a damn angel, and he feels a little guilty for not realizing it sooner. “Your soulmate must be one lucky guy.” 

“Thanks.” She smiles at him, still a little loopy and giddy. He’s not though. In fact, he’s sort of dead serious, only a tiny smile pulling at his lips. He’s just never seen this side of his friend before. It’s strange. 

Gallo and Ritter interrupt and pat her on the shoulder, drowning her with praise. “That was amazing,” Ritter awes. 

“It’s true, she’s a natural,” Stella chimes in. “Gallo, Ritter: you guys are next.”

“Oh, no no no, I’m--” Ritter begins to protest, but Gallo drags him up to the machine to pick a song.

Matt doesn’t participate in any singing but watches intently. Gallo and Ritter sing Copacabana, Stella drunkenly sings Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughta Know” and everyone loses it, Kelly even gets up to sing I Want To Break Free by Queen. The songs go on for the rest of the night until he gets a knock on his door from his neighbour at 9:00, who doesn’t appreciate the music as much. They wrap it up soon after that, everyone already having had a few turns at the mic anyway.

Gallo and Ritter are the first to get up and head to the door. “This has been fun, but we have to go. We’ve got studying to do this weekend and it won’t get done if we sleep in until noon.” 

“Oh yeah, they’re the newbies,” Stella awes adoringly, “they still want to make a good impression on the professors  _ and  _ have a good sleep schedule.” She and Sylvie giggle and fuss over the guys, who recoil to the touch but laugh along as they reach for their coats. 

“I’ll see you at practice tomorrow,” Gallo nods in Severide’s direction before he and Ritter leave. 

“See you guys tomorrow!” Everybody shouts at different times and it comes out clunky, but the sentiment is there nonetheless. 

Joe and Otis leave soon after that, opting to walk home and claiming that they’d get home faster that way than they would if they got another ride from Sylvie. Stella and Severide get up to head back down to their apartment, and Sylvie gets up with them.

“I should probably go too.” She gets up but trips over the corner of the couch on the way to the door and stumbles into Matt. 

“Woah there,” he says while trying to stabilize her. “You  _ have _ done some drinking, haven’t you?” 

“I needed some liquid courage for my performances,” she protests meekly, her nose scrunching. “I told you:  _ jitters _ .” She shudders as Matt remembers what she’d said about being freaked out every time she listens to something that could give her away, and feels bad all of a sudden. 

Matt still feels guilty about his drunk escapade last week, so he figures he can make it up to her by making sure she’s alright. It’s just like Sylvie said: all people want is for someone to take care of them, and to have someone to take care of in return. And until their soulmates come along, he thinks being that person for her is the least he could do in return. “You’re not actually thinking of driving though, are you? You’re not 21 yet, if something happens you could get into serious trouble.” 

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” 

“Come on, you can sleep on my couch, it’s not safe for you to go home.” 

She gives him a slightly defiant look but it fades quickly as she concedes. “Ok fine,” she sighs. “Matt Casey, my knight in shining armor.” 

“Ha, yeah that’s me alright,” he chuckles. He knows he’s always sort of had a reputation as the nice guy, but he’s far from Prince Charming. 

“Oh yeah,” she nods, making her way to the couch. Matt goes to grab a blanket as she keeps talking. “You know, Stella was right. Earlier, I mean, before the karaoke started.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“About you not being able to hide from your soulmate forever,” she explains casually, flopping onto the couch. “I know you got hurt last time you thought you’d found your soulmate but that doesn’t mean you can’t be proactive about finding the real one this time.” 

“I’m proactive,” he defends himself, but with little success. He doesn’t even believe himself when he says it. “Ok. So I’ve been avoiding it a little. But honestly? It sort of scares me.” 

“I get that,” she nods, adjusting a pillow on the couch before making herself comfortable and lying down. “I’m terrified. Why do you think I got drunk and sang my heart out?” They both laugh, then Matt sits next to her on the edge of the couch and pulls the blanket up to her shoulders. She wriggles under its warmth, sighing contentedly. “But I still want to find out who it is. And I think you do too. I think you just need to put yourself out there again. Oh! You know what? I have a friend who you’ll love. Her name is Olivia, she’s adorable and  _ single _ . I could set you two up!” 

Matt hesitates for a minute. He doesn’t necessarily need his soulmate to be romantic, and this date couldn’t possibly harm him in any way. The idea is nice, but Matt’s still hesitant. “A blind date? I don’t know…” 

“Oh, come on.” Her chin messes around with the blanket as she rolls her eyes. “You should let yourself be happy. Just consider it. Please?”

“I  _ am _ happy. Here, with all of you guys.  _ That’s _ what makes me happy.” Matt can tell just from Sylvie’s smile that she agrees. And it’s true too. He likes this, being close with his friends again. Especially Sylvie. She’s nice, and funny, and smart. And easy to read, which a breath of fresh air compared to his past relationships where trying to understand every emotion was such an exhausting ordeal. His friends right now are all he wants to focus on. But she seems adamant on this, so he accepts it. “But alright,” he caves, putting his hands up defensively. “If you want to set me up, then have at it.” 

“Really?” 

“Sure,” he shrugs. “I mean, maybe you’re right. Maybe I just need to learn to live a little. I’m sure my soulmate, whoever they are, can wait. Besides, it’s not like I’ve heard much music from them nowadays, so I’m sure they’re just as terrified as me and you. They’re not in any rush, so why should I be?” 

“Yes!” Sylvie cheers. “You’re not going to regret this.” 

“Get some sleep first though, please,” he whispers, laughing quietly as he gets up from the couch to go back to his room. 

“Matt?” He hears her call out one more time and turns around to see her on the couch, her eyes and nose peeking out of the covers. “You’re right too, about your soulmate waiting.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she echoes, yawning. “You’re worth waiting for…” Sylvie smiles and starts dozing off as soon as the words escape her mouth, only taking her seconds to fall asleep completely. He laughs to himself as he heads into his room again, touched by the sentiment. 

He falls asleep, preparing himself to be set up with Sylvie’s friend Olivia. Soulmates or not, he deserves to have some fun and be happy. Sylvie was right about that. And if this night taught him anything, it’s that he has friends in his corner. That doesn’t need any solidifying like he had worried it would— if anything, it’s the most solid thing in his life. Romance, however, is the one department he needs to stop being so afraid of. 

His soulmate, whoever they are, will reveal themselves in time. Normally, from what he’s heard, it only takes a few years for someone to figure out who their soulmate is. Fate has a way of pushing soulmates together naturally, according to everyone he’s heard talk about it. That’s probably why he feels the strange, achy, tugging feeling on his chest when he’s alone. A gut feeling must be pulling him towards his soulmate. Only now, he doesn’t care. It’s not driving him crazy, it’s not annoying him, or even terrifying him. It’s just there. He just knows that things happen naturally, no matter how badly he wants to control it. The realization alone is enough to let him sleep peacefully for the second night that week, both times with Sylvie outside his room. That stupid song— the one she was singing earlier, from Grease— gets stuck in his head, and he swears he can hear the memory of her singing it clear as day as he drifts off, the new white sheets cool against his cheek.

He’ll be alright. Soulmates are a tricky business, and they’re not always what you chalk them up to be. But if they’re anything like his friends, he’ll consider himself the luckiest man in the world. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! This small hiatus announcement for Fire has bummed me out but the added benefit is that it's great to force me into getting some writing inspo, haha! Hope you guys like this chapter, we have more Ritter and Gallo coming your way and some cute moments of this lil' group of scrappy, lovable idiots ;)

_ “CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Nurses will not be available effective from November 5th to November 19th. Visit Gaffney Chicago Medical Center today to get your hearing checked as well as other serious, soulmate-related injuries.”  _

Matt wakes up the next morning and, for a moment, wonders if the night before was all just a dream. 

Rubbing his eyes and sitting up in his bed confirms that it isn’t. He wakes up and crawls out of bed reluctantly, the events of last night slowly coming back to him as he leaves his bedroom. The closet cleaning, the awful pop song renditions Joe and Otis did that he almost wishes were a dream,  _ Sylvie _ . Everything they had talked about rings through his mind clear as day once he finds her still on his couch in her clothes from the night before. Their conversation, her idea of setting him up with someone, the soulmate talk.  _ You’re worth waiting for. _ That’s what she’d told him. Matt nods to himself and smiles tenderly at the memory of it. Lately, he finds himself doing that a lot with Sylvie Brett. 

Matt tiptoes to the kitchen as quietly as he can to get breakfast. He pulls out the same cereal he did last time she was over, puts a pot of coffee on and prays that the hissing of the machine won’t wake her. He takes a few sips from his mug once it’s ready but winces when Sylvie starts to wake up, groggy and only slightly hungover. The blanket’s bunched up around her arms, but she pushes it off and sits upright, taking in her surroundings. “Hi.”

“Hey. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers, leaning over the back of his sofa and propping his elbows on the backing. 

“Don’t worry, you didn’t.” She’s smiling as she runs a hand through her blonde hair. “What time is it?” 

“Ugh, early,” he grumbles. “Too early.” 

“I could really use some coffee right about now,” she groans, rubbing her eyes. 

“Here.” He hands her his mug of coffee without really thinking about it. It’s still mostly full anyway, and he could have just poured her a cup of her own, but he knows she probably needs it more than he does. 

Sylvie’s sort of taken aback by the action though, and looks at him quizzically from over the couch as she hesitantly takes a sip. “Thanks,” she replies awkwardly. 

He smiles before going back to pour himself a new cup and finish his cereal. It isn’t long before he hears a thudding sound from outside his apartment door, the sound startling both him and Sylvie. 

“What was that?” 

He and Sylvie say it at the same time, which evokes an awkward laugh from both of them. But Matt keeps hearing the grunting and thudding, and then someone’s knocking at the door frantically. 

Matt’s had disgruntled neighbours before. People who were drunk and stumbled onto the wrong doorstep, the occasional person trying to find their soulmate but getting the wrong address. It’s possible that people who came knocking last night to tell them to quiet down might be coming back top. But they’ve been quiet the whole night, it wouldn’t make sense. If it were Severide or Stella, they would have started screaming through the door by now or have just barged in and made themselves at home. Severide also has early morning practice right now with Gallo, so it can’t be him. Matt and Sylvie both stare at the door for the longest time, clueless as to who it could be. It’s alarming, to say the least. 

Sylvie gets up off the couch to approach the door, but Matt steps in front of her and goes first. He’d never let himself live it down if anything happened to her in his own apartment, so he slowly approaches the door and gets ready for the infinite possibilities. The door swings open and the knocking suddenly stops. He can hardly process what he’s looking at as he takes in who’s in front of him… 

“Ritter?” 

“I’m sorry I came here, I just- I didn’t know what else to do. Gallo, he…” His voice is shaky and trails off with worry, too panicked to be able to explain yet.

Blake’s figure leans against Ritter’s side, bruised and bloodied. Ritter’s tinier than Blake, so his body is struggling to keep him up but from the looks of it, Ritter’s the only thing keeping him standing. Matt and Sylvie stare in shock at Blake’s injuries: knuckles dripping blood, a swollen black eye with a scrape under it, more blood on his head and shirt. It hadn’t really registered to Matt before, how much of a kid Gallo still is. They’d teased the two guys about being the babies of the group, but it has never really rung as true as it does now. He’s hardly standing upright, his arm wrapped around Ritter’s shoulders, and he just looks so…  _ small _ . “I’m fine,” Gallo winces, holding his side. “Totally fine.” 

“You’re obviously not,” Sylvie replies worriedly. 

_ Sylvie’s here _ . Matt had stood there in shock, completely blanking, and had almost forgotten that she’s there with him and can deal with this with Matt. He doesn’t know why that strikes him so much, but it does. He’s sort of gotten used to being the rock for other people and having someone be there grounding him in return sends a feeling stirring in his stomach he doesn’t like. It keeps him speechless for a few seconds until he remembers the two scared guys standing right in front of him at his doorstep and forces himself to push out words.

“Come in, come in,” he rushes them in, closing the door and leading them to the couch. He finds a towel to lay out under Gallo’s head to avoid getting bloodstains on his couch. “What the hell happened?” 

“I was dropping him off at practice and he got into a fight with some assholes in the parking lot,” Ritter explains. “We can’t afford to go to a hospital right now, so I dragged him here. It’s the first thing I could think of.”

“I told you, I’m fine. It’s my own fault,” Gallo wheezes. “We shouldn’t have come here..” Matt doesn’t know what that means, and he has no idea where to start either. Luckily, he doesn’t have to, because the bubbly blonde next to him springs into action. 

“You did the right thing,” Sylvie reassures him, her tone firm but soothing. She turns to Matt, the three of them leaning over Gallo worriedly. “Do you have gauze in here? Polysporin, medical tape, anything?” 

“Uh, there’s a first aid kit under the sink in my bathroom. I’ll go get it.” 

“Perfect. I’ll get some ice for his eye. Oh, and we’ll need a cloth to wash off all that blood. Ritter, make sure he’s sitting upright,” she orders gently. “I know everyone thinks that tilting your head back will stop bloody noses but that’s a myth.” 

“Ok,” he nods, stuffing pillows behind Blake’s back and shoulders. Blake grunts at his best friend being so fussy over him, clearly wanting to prove his stoicism. 

Matt moves to his bathroom, grabs the first aid kit from under his sink, and doesn’t bother checking what’s inside. He knows it’s full anyway since neither he nor Gabby ever really needed it. 

Sylvie pries it open as quickly as she can when he hands it to her, trading with the bag of ice. She hands a hot cloth to Ritter and he wipes the excess blood off as Sylvie rummages for the disinfectant. “Ok. Now Gallo,” she announces when she finds it, “this is going to sting but it’ll help the cut on your eye.”

Sylvie tucks her legs under her, leaning over on the couch to ready herself. Matt’s on the other side of Gallo waiting patiently. “Matt, can you hold his head in place? I don’t want him to wiggle too much.” 

“Yeah.” Matt puts a hand on the side of Gallo’s head and tilts it towards him, firmly holding it in place. 

“I hardly think I’ll need to be restrai— Ow!” He yelps when the cream comes into contact with the wound on his cheek. “ _ Fuck _ , that hurt.” 

Sylvie finds the gauze and covers the whole wound with it, taping it down gently. “There,” she sighs, putting the ice pack over his black eye, right where the bruise and the cut meet. “You did well.” A wave of relief spreads over Matt. Kelly’s gotten in a few fights before, sure, but he’s always won and come out of them fairly unscathed. And from the looks of Gallo, didn’t win. “Here, take ibuprofen for pain relief. You must be feeling pretty sore right now.” She hands him a small, white pill and moves to get a glass of water for him. 

“Thanks, Doc,” Gallo kids, his laughter turning into coughs and winces quickly. Ritter continues to wipe the blood off of Gallo’s knuckles with the cloth, his eyes still anxious and fixed on Gallo. He notices this and tries to roll his eyes, unsuccessful because of the swelling. “I’m fine, dude. You can stop worrying about me.” 

“You shouldn’t have done that, I told you to leave it alone,” he huffs.

“They’re assholes, Ritter. They can’t just get away with stuff like that.” He shakes his head bitterly as Ritter continues to wipe the blood off Blake’s shirt, hands, and face. 

“You’re an idiot sometimes, you know that?” He sounds pissed, but Matt suspects it’s only because he’s so freaked out by whatever went down. 

Matt’s about to ask what the hell happened when Kelly, Stella, Joe, and Otis all barge into the apartment. They’re all still in their pajamas except for Kelly, who smells like dirty gym equipment and is still sweaty from practice. Otis and Joe are still in their pajamas (Star Wars-themed pajamas, not at all surprisingly) and no one wastes a second before asking a million questions a minute, speaking over each other like madmen. Matt had given Gabby’s old key to Kelly for emergencies only. And this morning has definitely felt like one big emergency, but he has no idea how their friends all know this. He hasn’t even touched his phone all morning. “What are you guys doing here?” He asks once their talking dies down, everyone expectantly looking at the four of them on the couch 

“Checking on Gallo,” Joe explains it as if Matt should already know. “Haven’t you guys checked the group chat?” 

“My phone died,” Sylvie says. 

“Yeah and we’ve been a little preoccupied,” Matt argues, gesturing towards Gallo’s face. 

“We know,” Severide interjects. “I got worried when Gallo didn’t show up to practice and then Ritter texted me to fill us in. I don’t know why you didn’t just take him to our place, man,” he addresses Ritter. “That’s one less floor to go to.” 

“I was panicking, this place was the first place I thought of,” he protests shyly. 

“Wait,” Stella interrupts, pointing at Sylvie. “If your phone died then how’d you get here so fast?”

“I slept here, I was too drunk to drive,” Sylvie explains bashfully, snorting. “Which reminds me, I should probably text my roommates to make sure they know I’m not dead or anything.” She pulls her phone out of the charger Matt had plugged it into last night, and Stella gives her a suspicious look before turning back to the two guys. 

“You guys are alright though, yeah? I mean, it looks pretty serious.” Stella asks, plopping down on the sofa next to Sylvie, her attention still on Gallo and Ritter. 

“Yeah, we’re alright,” Gallo nods, holding the ice to his eye. He’s sitting upright again, his expression stoic and still filled with some tortured feeling, but Matt can’t quite tell what it is. “Just some stupid fight. Guess my right hook’s not as strong as I thought,” he jokes dryly. Ritter doesn’t find it funny though, just keeps 

“Ok, details please,” Stella insists, anxiously awaiting answers. “Who the hell did this to you?” 

Matt and Sylvie glance at each other, and right away he can tell she’s as curious as he is about what happened. The others are too and lean on the edge of the couch hovering over them, eagerly waiting to hear the story. Gallo looks to Ritter as if to ask for permission, and he gives him a small nod as if to say  _ ‘go ahead _ ’. So he does. 

“Ritter was driving me to the early morning practice,” Gallo starts. 

“I was going to do homework on the sidelines while they practiced and then wait for it to be over to drive home,” Ritter interjects. 

“We were on our way to the field,” Gallo continues without missing a beat, “and, well… people made some comments about Ritter.” 

“One of them was that guy from orientation,” Ritter points out. Matt thinks it’s because Ritter secretly knows Matt hates that guy and will get mad instantly, and he’s right. He does. 

“Yeah, and these guys are just the worst. Ritter has some classes with them, which is how they know him. They started poking fun at us and it pissed me off. And then they took it too far and, well… I just sort of lost it.”

“What’d they say that was so awful?” Otis asks. 

Gallo looks hesitant and sighs, but Ritter looks down at his feet and takes over. “I haven’t been totally honest with you guys. I mean— I’ve been meaning to say this, but I just didn’t know how to.” 

“Say what?” Sylvie asks this time. 

He takes a deep breath in before responding. “I’m gay.” 

There’s a moment where everything is dead silent, everyone’s eyes still on Ritter. When he doesn’t say anything else, Stella’s the first to talk. “That’s it?” 

“Uh, yeah…” Ritter nods carefully, gaging everybody’s reactions. 

“You’re not vegan too, are you?” Otis asks, his small mustache twitching. 

“Dude, you’ve seen him eat pizza before,” Joe argues. 

“Cheese pizza is vegan.”

“No, it’s vegetarian,” he corrects Otis. “There’s a difference.” 

Sylvie throws them a glare as she interrupts them. “I think what we  _ mean _ to say,” she continues pointedly, “is that we all love and support you no matter what. Right?” 

Matt and the others nod in agreement without hesitation. Stella raises her hand to interject, leaning over the couch even further. “I’m bi. And my emotionally stunted football player accepts me just as I am. Yours does too, from the looks of it,” she teases, pointing to Gallo. 

“My best friend was a lesbian. Leslie Shay. She, uh, she passed away.” 

“Oh. I- I’m so sorry for your loss,” Ritter stutters. 

“Thanks. She was… she was the best person I’ve ever known,” Severide adds on, his voice heavy with the sentiment of his long-gone friend. 

“Oh,” Ritter nods, sighing with relief. “Well… thank you guys, really. I mean, Gallo was pretty much the only guy at our high school who accepted me for who I was, so… I guess I was a little nervous. But thanks.” 

“Wait, so what does this have to do with the fight?” Otis asks. Ritter and Gallo are silent, Ritter pursing his lips together tensely. 

“ _ Oh _ .” Otis realizes it before his question is even answered, the gravity of the situation soaking into him.

“They kept calling him slurs,” Gallo says, even as everyone comes to the realization on their own. 

“I’m used to it,” Ritter explains despairingly. “It’s sad, but it’s true. Being black  _ and _ being gay doesn’t exactly get me a ‘ _ get out of jail free’  _ card in life.” 

“You shouldn’t have to tolerate that,” Gallo protests, snarling at the thought of it. “They’re small-minded bigots.” 

“Gallo, please tell me you at least got a good punch or two in,” Kelly says, his voice low and steaming. Matt remembers back when Kelly first started dating Stella and beat up nearly half the football team for hyper-sexualizing his bisexual girlfriend. If anyone knows what it’s like to lose their cool at homophobes, it’s Kelly Severide. 

“Oh I did,” he nods. “That douchebag from orientation has a broken nose now. It was bleeding like crazy. That’s the only reason Ritter and I were able to get the hell out of there.” 

“Good,” Otis grumbles. “They deserve it. We should complain to Boden. He likes us, he’ll expel them if we ask him to, right?” 

“No, we can’t tell anyone,” Ritter backtracks, “Gallo could still get in trouble for getting into a fight on campus.” 

Everyone nods, finding it unfair but still understandable. As much as they want to fight it, they respect Gallo and Ritter’s wishes. 

Things sort of die down after that. Everyone asks questions about Gallo’s injuries as he stays on the couch, Matt offers coffee to everyone, Severide even talks to Ritter about Shay for a while. Eventually, the stressful, intense chaos dies down and turns into exactly like the night before: just friends hanging out. It’s an impromptu Saturday morning get-together, but no one has much else to do all morning now that practice is over and it’s the weekend. 

Matt’s heart is still racing if he’s being honest. This whole morning had not gone how he expected it would, and finding his friend bleeding on his doorstep definitely threw him for a loop. He hardly notices when Sylvie comes walking up to him and leans on the portion of the counter next to him the same way he is. “Hey,” she hums. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m good,” he replies, trying to shake it off. Normally, it’d be enough to get anyone off his case, but Sylvie doesn’t buy it for a second and he laughs a little. “This whole morning’s just been crazy, that’s all.” 

“Tell me about it. I’m still a little bit hungover and this did not help with the headache,” she grumbles. “I had to take an aspirin from the first aid kit.” 

“Yeah. You were great today, by the way,” he explains, bewildered at the memory of watching her snap into action. “The way you knew exactly what to do. Even when exhausted and hungover.”

“Ah, it’s nothing,” she brushes it off modestly, but Matt doesn’t let her get away with it. Sometimes, she needs to learn to just accept the compliment. “I’m just glad I could help him. It looked pretty nasty there for a second.” 

“You should consider a career in EMS,” he jokes. “Total badass.” 

“Sounds exciting.” Her laugh is tiny, her breath short, her smile small. There are six other people talking and laughing less than twenty feet away from them, but it feels quiet in the kitchen just the two of them.

“It is. And I’m serious,” he persists. “You were amazing. How did you do that?” 

“Fowlertown,” she shrugs. “My dad got me a job at the Veterinary Clinic back home in high school. Everyone sort of knew everyone, so the main Vet was more than happy to hire me. And since it was a small town in the middle of Indiana, it meant I had to help treat horses, puppies, kittens, all of it. I guess the medical stuff sort of stuck. I’m just glad my patient was human this time, honestly. At least Gallo doesn’t bite.” 

“Just wait until you try and tell him to turn down Green Day,” he kids, proud when he gets a laugh from Sylvie too. “But how did I not know this?” He asks it because he feels bad about it. In all the years he’s known Sylvie, he didn’t know that. But he should have. 

“Matt, it’s fine,” she giggles, noticing how guilty and worried he looks. “I’m sure there’s plenty of things I don’t know about you either. You really aren’t obligated to know all the details.” 

“I know. But that’s not just some small detail, that’s like half your teen years. We’ve been friends for three years now, how’d that not come up?” 

She pauses, thinks about it for a moment. “I guess I always figured I was more Gabby’s friend than yours back then. I mean, I know we met first, but Gabby was what we had in common for most of our friendship,” she confesses. 

“I never thought of you as just Gabby’s friend.” His heart sinks in that moment. Is that really what she thinks? That he’s just viewed her as Gabby’s friend all this time? Man, he sucks. 

She watches his shoulders slump shamefully and eases his guilt. “I don’t think that anymore. And it’s not important whether or not you knew me well before. Because you and I are closer now, and I like it like that.” 

“Me too,” he agrees, smiling. His thoughts still wander though and he racks his brain for how he missed so much about her. How did he go so long without knowing a simple thing like where she worked in high school? It’s stupid, really. He should have known that and it scares him. But he thinks about why he didn’t know it, why he didn’t even feel the urge to ask, and gets even more scared when he realizes it’s because he feels like he’s known everything he needed to know about her from the moment they met. She’s just open like that, easy to read, and wears her heart on her sleeve. Unfailingly honest and kind. And he hadn’t bothered to put in the effort because, well, it just felt like he knew her already. Did he really just take all that for granted? And why does that stupid,  _ stupid _ feeling exist in the first place? Why does he feel like he’s had her figured out since day one when it took him years to crack Gabby? Friendships require just as much effort as relationships, but it feels weird to him to have his friendship with Sylvie come to him so easily when his relationship with the woman he was in love with for nearly three years never did. And maybe that means he never bothered to put the work into his friendship with Sylvie, which makes him feel even more guilty. “Hey, uh… can I, though?”

She lets her legs swing and dangle off the counter, her shoulder pressed close to his as confusion spreads across her face. “Can you what?” 

“Know you. All of it, I mean.” 

She gives a breathy laugh and smiles shyly. “I’m an open book.” 

The only thought that races through his head is the one that he doesn’t bother to say out loud.  _ That Gabby never was _ . He knows that he shouldn’t compare his relationship with Gabby to his friendship with Sylvie, but it’s true. There was always that tiny part of Gabby that she constantly kept from others and he just couldn’t handle that. It drove him to do all these stupid, irrational, selfish things. And sure, he doesn’t pretend she never existed. She’s still a huge part of his past and that won’t go away, but it’s not like he wants her back. Still, it feels weird to think about it at the moment. Sylvie was the person he would go to when he needed to talk about Gabby, or about soulmates. She and Severide, really. Hell, even Kelly Severide is able to open up to Matt. They’re his two best friends and confidants. Why  _ should _ he feel weird to say that to Sylvie then? 

He’s about to reply to her, to tell her he’ll read that open book forwards and backward when he hears Otis calling out from the other end of the apartment. They both turn away, looking at their group of friends who have now gathered around one of the big windows. Even Gallo, bloodied and bruised, hobbles over to the window and they all wave for Matt and Sylvie to come over. “Hey you two, get over here,” Otis shouts. “It’s snowing!” 

Snow in Chicago isn’t exactly news. Now that it’s November it was really only a matter of time before the snow came. But it’s the first snowfall of the year. They squish into the huddled ball of friends as everyone looks out the window. 

There’s no such thing as magic. Soulmates are pretty close, but it’s still not magic. That’s just fate. But the snow that they see coming down is the closest thing to magic there is. Matt’s standing there, surrounded by his friends. Kelly, Sylvie, Stella, Joe, Otis, Gallo, Ritter. His whole world is in one room, looking out the window and watching the snowfall. It’s not a vicious wind or the grainy, wet snow, just light, gentle snowflakes falling to the ground like bits of heaven. It’s a peaceful, beautiful moment. He stands there, his world completely silent, as they all quietly watch the snow coming in through the gray clouds. 

Matt doesn’t know why, but he feels like something else is coming in right along with it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise these next few chapters will get even juicier with the Brettsey content, I know I say that like every chapter but I mean it this time!! Go check the hashtag #college soulmates!au on my Tumblr for more little hints that I've dropped, and comment all your thoughts on this chapter because I love hearing them <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9 is here and it's getting interesting! Hope you guys like it, and if you haven't listened to Waterloo by ABBA already then what are you doing with your life?? Go listen to it while reading this chapter!

_ “CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Did you know? The world record for the amount of time it took someone to find their soulmate is 13 years, 2 months, 6 days, and 45 minutes! The previous record was broken in 2013.” _

The next two weeks go by slowly in all the right ways. 

Things generally tend to seem slower in the winter anyway, but Matt likes feeling like he’s taking his time. It’s his last year, after all, and he’s not in any rush to finish it. Things in his life have finally reached this really nice sweet spot of lighthearted happiness. His friends, his courses, his life altogether, really. His co-op is going great.  _ So great _ . He learns so much, bit by bit, day by day. Mr. Darden was sad to see him go but understood what it meant to Matt. And it means a lot, being offered this opportunity. The people there tell him almost right that he shows promise. It means a lot to him. The co-op doesn’t busy his schedule too much either, meaning he still has time to see his friends. He and Sylvie spend most of their free time together. When they’re not with their friends, they’re studying together in the library or going to get coffee or watching movies. Neither her nor Matt drink all that much either, considering the last time each of them got drunk it ended poorly. So instead, they start either doing work together or getting to know all the things about each other they don’t already know. 

On the first day after Gallo’s fight, Matt shows her the scar he has on his shoulder from when he wiped out on his bicycle as a kid, Sylvie tells him her middle name which she hates (Matt tries to tell her that May is a perfectly nice middle name but she’s convinced that it’s boring and unoriginal), they talk about their childhoods. It’s nice, to say the least. 

He learns little things about her, even the thing she doesn’t say out loud. She’s adopted, but she always switches when Matt asks about her birth parents. She’s unfailingly loyal, which Matt already knew, but he only now notices how much of a toll it must take on her. Sylvie is always putting others before herself, and it has to tire her out sometimes. But she’s strong in her own way, and she gets through everything life throws at her with a level of hope and optimism that baffles him. He figures the least he can do for her is sit, listen, and be there for her if she ever needs anything. Sylvie Brett deserves at least that much, in his opinion. 

After only a week, they’re hanging out almost every day. It's not that much of a contrast from before since they hang out with their group of friends almost daily anyway, but they’ve never really spent this much time together just the two of them. Sylvie was right before: Joe has Otis, Matt has Severide, Gallo has Ritter, but he and Sylvie had never put in an effort to be close friends. It’s an error they fix fast though. 

Matt even meets Sylvie’s roommates: Jimmy Borelli and Jessica Chilton. They’re sweet, and they get used to Matt stopping by frequently to see Sylvie, but they’re not all that interested in him and are sort of caught up in their own world. Which he doesn’t mind, since he’s really only around them when he’s with Sylvie. Meeting her to walk to class, study sessions during lunch, watching movies, and playing charades (She and Matt crushed Jimmy and Jessica in charades during the one and only game night they held, and it sort of became their thing). The apartment they all live in is nice though. There are big, open windows, and a huge island in the kitchen. He doesn’t know why his friends don’t hang out there more often, although that might have something to do with Jimmy and Jessica. 

They also have a midterm today, which is why they’ve been working so hard these past two weeks. They always hold each other accountable, keep each other on track when they get distracted. Since their class isn’t until later in the morning though, Sylvie texts him first thing in the morning and asks him to come over for one last study session. The promise of good food and good company along with the studying is enough to convince Matt, which is why he doesn’t hesitate to accept and drives up to her place fifteen minutes later. 

He gets off the elevator to her building when it reaches the fifth floor, as he normally has every morning these past few weeks. But just as the doors are about to slide open, he hears it. Clear as day, he hears music start to play. It’s upbeat and a little girly, frankly, but he recognizes it as ABBA before it even reaches the chorus. Matt doesn’t think much of the music until he hops off the elevator and notices the music getting louder and louder as he hops off the elevator. Clearly, it’s coming from Sylvie’s place. 

_ “Waterloo _

_ I was defeated, you won the war _

_ Waterloo _

_ Promise to love you forevermore _

_ Waterloo _

_ Couldn't escape if I wanted to _

_ Waterloo _

_ Knowing my fate is to be with you _

_ Oh, oh, oh, oh, Waterloo _

_ Finally facing my Waterloo”  _

It feels so loud like it’s right in his ears, and he knows for sure that it’s coming from Sylvie’s place. He can’t imagine that Jimmy and Jessica are enjoying this all that much. Sylvie’s a lot more energetic and cheery than they are, and Matt doesn’t think this kind of music would be likable to them. It’s not exactly his style either but he has to admit: it’s not half bad. He sort of likes it, finds himself bopping his head along to the music as he knocks at the door. 

“Come in, it’s open!” He hears Sylvie shout out over the music, so he opens the door and walks in, dropping his things down on the portion of the counter closest to him. 

The sight in front of him is hectic, to say the least. The kitchen is right by the entrance to her apartment, so it doesn’t take long for Matt’s eyes to find Sylvie moving back and forth in the kitchen surrounded by chaos. Flour covers half the countertops he sees, a carton of eggs is inches away from falling off the island, and there’s a frying pan that Sylvie hovers over carefully with something in it that smells  _ heavenly _ . The music keeps playing, and Sylvie’s hardly noticed him enter. She’s dancing around, shaking her hips and ruffling her hair playfully along with the music, carefree and happy. It’s like karaoke night all over again, except she’s only humming along quietly this time. “Hi.” 

“Hi!” She smiles, her energy still as upbeat. Her cheeks turn bright red though, and Matt can tell she’s not exactly used to having an audience for this sort of thing. It makes a smile creep onto his face though because he really is happy that she’s listening to music again. She was all too ready to let this soulmate thing control her, just like he had, so it’s nice to see her enjoy it again. 

“This is new,” he chuckles. “More guilty pleasure songs?” 

“Oh no, Mamma Mia is  _ never  _ a guilty pleasure, it’s just a flat-out pleasure.”

“Well it must have been good enough to put you in a good mood, I could practically hear this song playing from the elevator,” Matt points out. 

“Really?” Sylvie’s nose scrunches up as she moves to the little Bluetooth speaker on her counter and turns the music off. “I didn’t think it was that loud… oops,” she laughs bashfully, then hurries back to the pan on the stove and winces even more. “I hope I didn’t wake up Jimmy and Jessica. Today’s their morning off.” 

“What  _ are  _ you doing anyway?” He leans over the island and peeks at whatever she’s baking that smells so damn good. He sees a bowl full of batter on one side and a plate on the other that has the beginning of what Matt assumes is going to be a rather large stack of pancakes. 

  
“I’m making pancakes,” she explains, scooping a mound of batter into the pan and watching it sizzle. “You want some?”

Matt’s about to politely decline, but he gets a whiff of the pancakes and can’t resist. Just the smell of them alone is enough to make him realize how starving he is. “Sure,” he concedes, moving to stand next to her and looks over the pan. “Smells good, what’s in them?” 

“It’s a secret.” 

“Oh come on,” he pleads. “It’s me you’re talking to. I won’t tell anyone.” 

“No! No way, absolutely not,” she protests, playfully swatting at him. 

“Not even if I tell you what I put in my mac n’ cheese in return?” 

Sylvie hesitates, then briefly turns her attention away from the pan to point a finger at him. “Ok deal. But you have to promise not to tell anyone, alright?” 

“Only if you promise the same,” he counters. 

“Well duh, I promise! That’s why we’re best friends, you know. It’s a two-way street with us, always 50/50. So  _ I promise _ .” She extends her pinky finger and Matt looks at it, a little incredulous. He can’t even remember the last time he made a pinky promise. Probably not since the fifth grade, he thinks. It’s kind of ridiculous; and kind of fun. And he likes being called her best friend, which seems almost as ridiculously fun as the pinky swear.

He gives in though, once he sees that Sylvie isn’t going to tell him anything until he does it. His pinky hooks gently into hers, and the deal is struck. “I promise too.” 

“Ok, you first.” 

He sighs, takes a deep breath, and gives in. No one knows about this apart from his family. Like, no one. Not even Gabby. But he wants to know whatever’s in those pancakes badly, so giving it up is a sacrifice he’s willing to take. “Nutmeg. And extra bread crumbs. Your turn.” A smirk creeps up onto his face as he watches her digest the information.

“Skor bits,” she replies simply when it’s her turn. 

  
“Skor bits?” Matt’s heard of a million different things being put in pancakes: chocolate chips, banana, blueberries, strawberries, even marshmallows. But Skor bits? It’s definitely unexpected. 

“Yes!” Her face lights up as she turns back to the pan and motions for him to lean in closer. “Look,” she explains, pointing to the dark caramel coloured spots hidden in the pancake. “They’re small, but they melt in the pancake, like hot toffee. It’s so good, I promise.” 

“I’ll trust you on this one,” he says hesitantly as she grabs a lifter from the pile of cooking utensils and slides one off the pan right onto a plate, handing it to him with a fork. He breaks off a piece with the fork and takes a bite, the dough and sticky candy bits melting into his mouth.  _ Holy shit _ , that’s amazing. “Oh my god,” he exclaims, his mouth still full with bits of pancake.

“What do you think?” She leans in, her expression hopeful and expectant. 

“I think I want this pancake to be my soulmate,” he jokes, swallowing the rest of his bite. 

“I know, it’s delicious,” Sylvie raves. She puts another scoop of batter onto the pan and waits until bubbles form to flip it, repeating the action over and over until she runs out of batter and has maxed out on pancakes. The stack ends up being huge and she grabs a few for herself as they move to the table. “There’s plenty more, too.”

He grabs his notes out of his bag and sits right next to her at the table. Sylvie doesn’t bother looking up from her plate of pancakes, just happily cuts them into bite-sized pieces as she feels Matt push his chair in to reach for another pancake, his knee pushing against hers. And yes, Matt realizes how weird this should feel. Her kitchen table is round and huge and there’s plenty of space, so picking a spot that leaves virtually no space should have awkward implications, but it doesn’t. They weren’t exactly touchy-feely with each other before but over the past couple of weeks, it’s become increasingly comfortable for them. 

Matt pulls out his textbook and flips open to the chapter he had tabbed. “If we want to get some studying in before this test, we better start no--” 

“Oh, wait! I completely forgot: I never gave you my friend Olivia’s number,” she realizes, her brows furrowed as she prods at a piece of pancake with her fork. “I totally forgot, what with the whole Gallo situation. Here, I’ll send you her number now.” 

“Oh, uh, o- ok,” he stammers as Sylvie pulls her phone out and texts him Olivia’s contact info, then turns back to their work and pulls out her notes. “Thanks.”

Here’s the thing. 

Matt knows what he said. He knows he promised he’d think about it, and he has. But his soulmate’s been quiet lately, and he doesn’t know what that means. Slowly, dreadfully, his curiosity is starting to get the best of him. He doesn’t need to have his soulmate be the person he falls in love with, but the possibility that Olivia might  _ not  _ be his soulmate is enough to make him uneasy. And he’s even more uneasy at the possibility that she might be. 

Right now, though, right now he’s promised that to Sylvie. It’s the only reason he accepted it in the first place if he’s being honest. The least he could do for her is follow through on that, so he pushes aside his nerves as Sylvie sighs and switches the topic. “Now, where were we?” 

“Chapter 12.” He points to his open textbook. “Learning it forwards and backward.” 

“Right,” she nods. Just like that, Sylvie dives into studying and pulls a willing Matt in with her.

They keep studying until they run out of time and have to make their way to class. Sylvie’s apartment is too far away from campus to be able to walk, so they carpool in Matt’s truck and make it there just on time. Sylvie pinches his arm to wish him good luck, he does the same, and then everything goes quiet until they’ve both left the room and finished their test. 

Sylvie finishes first, obviously (and will still somehow manage to get the best mark in the class, probably). She hands it in with time to spare and Matt looks up from his test for the first time in an hour to watch her leave. She has other classes to go to but he’ll see her later, he knows that. Except maybe he doesn’t, because when he finishes his test and checks his phone, he sees a text from Olivia. 

**_Olivia:_ ** _ Hey, your Sylvie’s friend, right? Matt? I know some people hate when their friends try and set them up but if you’re up for it, I know a really cute dinner we can go to tonight. 6:30? _

Ok, so she’s forward. He doesn’t hate it. He’s reluctant to accept her offer, but he doesn’t hate it. Gabby was like that too around the time they started dating. But Sylvie’s words play over in his mind, her vow that Matt deserves to be happy, and he can’t get them out of his head. Like, at all. So, he throws caution to the wind and decides to try it, replying to Olivia and saying he’ll be there. She texts back with the address, he walks to his next class, and considers it settled. 

Matt doesn’t see Sylvie for the rest of the day. Or Severide, or Stella, or any of his friends. He texts Sylvie to let him know he’s seeing Olivia tonight which makes her happy, but he still wishes he could see her and the rest of his friends. It makes him grumpy. Sitting around waiting to get ready for this blind date he has isn’t helping either. He shouldn’t be as grumpy as he is, because he knows he’ll see them all soon, but he feels an itch now more than ever. It’s that same pull he feels when thinking about his soulmate, like a rope dragging him somewhere, and he wonders if he’s being pulled towards this date. He doesn’t know. Honestly, trying to make sense of the weird ways of soulmates is hopeless. That night, Matt paces around his place waiting to leave for his date, and replays everything he knows about his soulmate over in his head. 

His soulmate isn’t listening to a ton of music lately. His soulmate has mostly listened to the radio and popular songs. And his soulmate had to have been at Joe and Otis’s party back in September, which means they must be at the University. Those are pretty much the only facts he knows for certain, which is pretty awful. How is he supposed to solve this puzzle if he barely has three pieces to it? 

Eventually, he runs out the clock pacing and diving into his work, and he grabs his phone, wallet, and keys before dashing out in his coat and into the cold Chicago winter. The wet snow sloshes against the wheels of his car as he drives out to meet Olivia at the diner she had told him about. It’s not too far, but he drives anyway to avoid walking in the snow. She’d sent him her Instagram profile so he knows what to look for when he does enter the diner. His eyes seek out brown hair when he gets there, and finds it when she waves him over. “Hi,” she greets herself as he comes over to her table. 

“Hi.” He sits down across from her, sliding into the vinyl booth. He gives her a polite smile that she quickly returns, but nothing else happens for a few seconds too long. It’s just weird. There’s no other way to describe it. “Nice to meet you.”  _ Nice to meet you? Really Matt? _ God, maybe he has been out of the dating scene for too long. He has  _ no _ game. 

“Nice to see you too,” she replies, cheerful but nervous. “Hope you got here okay.” 

“Yeah, it was easy to find. I-I’m glad we got to do this.”  _ Okay, so maybe that’s sort of a lie. _ As nice as she seems, he’s been dreading this. But he is glad to be here, out in the world, trying again. 

“Yeah,” she nods. “Sylvie doesn’t usually try and set me up with her friends, she must think very highly of you.”

“Oh, uh— well, I think highly of her too.” His smile is genuine this time because it’s the first completely accurate thing he’s said for the past ten minutes. “How do you know Sylvie?”

“Oh, we met at this spin class free trial the University was offering last year,” Olivia explains, picking up a menu to look over the diner options. “She was really sweet and invited me to lunch afterward. We’ve been friends ever since.”

“Yeah, she told me about those classes. Tried to rope us all into them,” he laughs. 

“What about you? How do you know her?” 

“Uh… Lit class, I guess. We had Herrmann in our first year here and so she made a study group. Everyone in our study group has sort of all stayed best friends since then, minus a few who have come and gone.” 

“That sounds nice,” she sighs dreamily. “You guys all must be so close.” 

“Yeah, we are. All thanks to her, I guess. And to Herrmann.” 

“I know you, and I know Sylvie and Stella, but none of the others in the group. Sylvie’s been meaning to introduce them all to me.” 

“So you, uh… you haven’t met Joe or Otis yet?” For one minute, Matt lets his curiosity get the best of him. If she doesn’t know Joe or Otis, the chances she was at that party are slim to none. It's not a dealbreaker, but he just  _ has  _ to know either way. 

  
“No, I haven’t. But Sylvie talks about them a lot, especially about her time being their roommate,” she chuckles. 

“Right,” he laughs weakly, suddenly finding the menu very interesting. 

“They have good milkshakes here, by the way,” Olivia switches the topic. “The strawberry ones are the best.”

“Nice. I lean more towards vanilla. Sylvie would love this place, she’s a big fan of milkshakes too.”

“Right.” This time, it’s Olivia’s turn to give a weak laugh, and the awkwardness quickly settles in again. 

There’s nothing wrong with Olivia. She’s perfectly sweet and nice, and Matt likes her, just not like that. It doesn’t take him long to realize that there’s nothing there. He senses that she thinks the same thing, but he honestly doesn’t know. And they don’t quite talk about the soulmate thing since they had both agreed over text that they don’t care about the soulmate thing, just to clear the air. They had agreed to just have fun, no serious implications attached yet. Still, he can’t help but find the whole situation awkward. And he misses his friends terribly, even though it’s been less than 48 hours since he’s seen his friends and less than 24 hours since he’s seen Sylvie. 

Not that he’s counting or anything. 

The waiter comes with his burger and fries and Olivia’s garden salad (yet another thing he learned about her was that she’s sort of a health nut) in record time, and they dig in. The food is good. It acts as a crutch when things get awkward in the conversation, which ends up being a few times. But he’s halfway through his burger when he hears a pounding sound in his head. The same music that was playing at the party that night, the screeching electronic music. It’s ringing in his ears and no one else in the restaurant seems to hear it. Is his soulmate really picking now to do this? “Agh,” he winces, holding his head. “Sorry, soulmate stuff.” 

“It’s okay,” she laughs. “It must be loud. What are you hearing?” 

“EDM,” he groans. 

“Oh god. You poor thing,” Olivia coos sympathetically. “That must be torture.” 

He’s focusing on what he’s hearing, looking for any clues, when he realizes it sounds a lot grainier than usual. It sounds familiar, like something being played on an overhead speaker. Whoever his soulmate is must be at the university campus still, he figures, because he hears the beeping of the speaker before the song gets cut off. “It’s gone,” he tells Olivia, slightly stunned. 

“Well that’s good, right?” 

“I think so, yeah.” He  _ knows  _ so. No electronic dance music is a good thing; a very, very good thing. 

He shakes it off and turns his attention back to Olivia as they finish their dinner and talk. They finish twenty minutes later and Matt, always a gentleman, gets the cheque. This night might have been a bit underwhelming, but he’s still going to maintain basic first-date etiquette. Olivia smiles, thanks him for paying, and they’re just about to get their coats when his phone starts ringing. “Sorry,” he apologizes and tries to shut his phone off, but it rings again. 

“You can get that, you know. It’s fine,” she reassures him. “We’re pretty much done here anyways.” 

“It’ll just be a minute.” He gets up out of the booth and answers the phone, stepping away for privacy. The minute he finally reads the caller ID, however, he wants to smack himself on the head for not picking it up sooner. Sylvie’s name in bright letters flashes across his screen. “Sylvie?”

“Matt! Oh thank god you picked up. I’ve been trying other people all night but Gallo and Ritter haven’t picked up and the sounds I heard when Stella picked up were just TMI and-- ugh you won’t believe what went down, this is just--”

“Ok, Sylvie, slow down,” he tries calming her. She’s rambling into the phone at a million miles a minute, her tone worried and a little frustrated. “What’s wrong?”   
  


“Joe and Otis,” she huffs. “They’re in trouble.”

“What’d they do this time?” Matt rolls his eyes, even though he knows Sylvie can’t see him. 

“I was in the library trying to find a good read, and then all of a sudden music starts playing on the overhead speakers. I mean, it was everywhere in the buildings.” 

“Oh god,” Matt groans. He already knows where this is going. Joe and Otis are the only ones stupid enough to pull a prank as illegal as this one. “Let me guess, EDM?”

“Oh yeah,” she scoffs. 

Ok. So his soulmate was at the university twenty minutes ago. Duly noted. At least now he knows they don’t willingly listen to awful music, right? “Apparently, Joe and Otis thought it would be hilarious to blast it for everyone to hear,” Sylvie continues. “Fifteen minutes later, I’m at home and getting a call from them telling me to save them. They’re in Boden’s office now, the cops are coming to talk to them.” 

“What do you need?” He jumps in to help, a little more prepared now than he was when Gallo showed up at his door bloodied and bruised two weeks ago.    
  


“They need a ride home from Boden’s office, it’s too cold and snowy out to walk back to their dorm now. But my car’s getting serviced and they’re going to be stuck with a grumpy Boden if I leave them there to fend for themselves, and— oh my god,” she groans at a sudden realization. “I totally forgot, you’re probably still out with Olivia, aren’t you? I’m so stupid.” 

“Hey hey hey, you’re not stupid,” he assures her, his voice soft but fiercely defensive of her. Sylvie’s many things, but stupid is  _ not _ one of them. “We’re just finishing up here anyway, I’ll come and pick you up as soon as I’m done. Call Joe and Otis and tell them to sit tight, okay? They’ll need to talk to the cops about fines anyway so we have time. We’ll get them as soon as we can.” 

“Ok.” He can hear her taking deep breaths through the phone. “Matt?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Uh… thank you. I just—  _ thank you _ .” 

“Yeah. Of course.” Matt jumps into action, reaching for his coat. Right now, his friends need him, and he would do just about anything to help them. So he smiles as he hangs up the phone and walks over to Olivia. 

“I’m sorry, I really have to get going. It’s an emergency. Are you sure you can get home alright?” 

“My car’s parked out front,” she explains, pulling her jacket on. 

“Ok good. Sorry, again, about all this,” he apologizes sheepishly. 

“Let me guess, something—  _ someone— _ came up?” 

Matt doesn’t quite know how to respond, because he has no idea what she’s trying to say here. Is there something he’s missing out on? 

Olivia notices Matt’s confusion and continues, sighing wisely. “Tell Sylvie I say hi.” 

She doesn’t look angry, or even the slightest bit agitated, but it sends Matt’s head spinning with guilt and more confusion. “Olivia, Sylvie and I aren’t— I mean, we’re just friends. She’s practically my best friend. I just got out of a pretty serious relationship a couple of months ago. That’s why she suggested this in the first place.” 

“Well for someone who just got out of a serious relationship, you sure don’t act like it.” She gives a baffled laugh as they make their way to the front door. 

“I promise, it really is an emergency. Joe and Otis got busted for some stupid prank.” They walk out onto the sidewalk, the snowflakes falling down from the inky night sky and the wind blowing in their faces. 

Olivia still doesn’t seem bitter about it, just understanding and kind. “It’s okay, you really don’t need to explain. Go on, help your friends. They need you right now.” 

He looks hesitant, but she points to the car next to them to reassure him it’s hers and is slightly comforted by that fact. Still, it doesn’t stop him from feeling a little bad for bolting out of the blind date so quickly. “Ok. Thank you, and sorry— again, I mean.” 

“Don’t be,” she dismisses it with the breezy swipe of her hand and a chuckle. “I’ll see you around, Matt Casey.” 

“See you around,” he chuckles weakly, smiling as he slowly turns to find his car. 

Driving to Sylvie’s feels so much harder. Every time he tries signaling or breaking, or even just stepping on the gas, his mind drifts off to what Olivia said to him. 

Matt knows he doesn’t feel, act, or look like a guy who just got out of a long, serious relationship. It’s not like he planned when and where and how he moved on. He just  _ did _ . Call it working his ass off, call it a side effect of soulmates, call it what you will. But Matt Casey moved on. Of course he still loves Gabby, the same way he loves all the important people who have passed through his life. He loves the time they had together and wishes for her nothing but happiness, but he doesn’t  _ want _ her. Not the way he did before. Maybe it took him a little while to realize that but realizes it now. 

Matt also knows that Olivia’s off about him and Sylvie.  _ Way  _ off. There’s no way he and Sylvie… Well, there’s just no way. They’re close, sure. Certainly a lot closer than they were a month and a half ago, to say the least. Maybe he did bring Sylvie up a lot on that date, but she’s something he and Olivia have in common. And it was pretty much the  _ only _ thing they had in common too. So of course he’s going to use that to find common ground. And of course he’s going to talk about someone in his life. His friends are his whole life right now, it’d be weird if he didn’t bring them up. Matt knows he would have done the same thing about Stella or Otis or Severide if it were one of their friends he had been set up with. In fact, Otis was how he got talking to that woman in his class last month, who he ended up sleeping with. So yeah, he’s going to talk about his friends. But with Sylvie, it’s different. It’s a friendship that he’s been more focused on lately and valuing more. That might have caused him to think about her more frequently. But more than friends? No no, no. That’s crazy. 

_ Right?  _

Finally, his mind is able to concentrate on driving enough for him to pull up to her apartment, where Sylvie’s already waiting outside the building. Her beanie is on and the hair that sticks out covers her cheeks, but Matt can still see how rosy and cold they look. She must have been waiting out there for a while. 

“Hey, hop in,” he calls out to her, getting out of the car to open the passenger door for her.  _ Jesus, Matt, _ he thinks.  _ You’re not on a date anymore, you can chill it on the chivalry.  _

“Hi,” she greets him, breathing heavily from the cold as she climbs into the passenger seat and buckles her seatbelt. “Thank you for doing this. I owe you big time.”

“I told you, I’m happy to do it,” he shrugs. “You don’t always have to be taking care of other people, they can take care of you sometimes. You just have to ask.” 

  
“I know,” she replies, smiling ever so faintly. “I just… ever since I was a kid, I’ve worried that if I don’t do things for other people, they’ll leave me. A side effect of being adopted, I guess. Is that crazy?”

  
“Not at all.” He shakes his head, locking eyes with her.

“God, I just hope Joe and Otis alright. Those two cannot be left alone for too long, I swear. The longer they stay there, the more likely they’ll say something stupid to Boden and the cops.” 

“Boden’s a fair guy, he’ll give them a chance,” he tries to argue but can feel it fall flat. He knows it just as well as she does: Joe Cruz and Otis Zvonecek are the class clowns who can  _ always _ be counted on to make things worse for themselves. “They’ll be okay, I promise.” 

She stares at him from the passenger seat, smiling ever so faintly. “There you go again, taking care of things,” she awes quietly. “When did you get so good at this?” 

“Well, it’s like you said: somebody’s got to, right?” 

“Right.” Sylvie holds back a smile, biting her lip as he pulls out. 

Matt steps on the gas after that and they speed over to the main office building. His strides feel long as they finally reach the main building on campus and rush into Headmaster Boden’s office. As soon as they enter, Matt’s eyes land on the men with badges hovering over Joe and Otis, their expressions uneasy as they slouch in their chairs. Boden seems surprised to see him and Sylvie burst in, which Matt can’t blame him for, but his gaze feels unwaveringly kind compared to that of the two cops. 

“Who are these two?” The one on the right side of Boden speaks first, leaning onto the corner of Boden’s desk. 

“Gentlemen, this is Matt Casey and Sylvie Brett. They’re students here at the university and friends with Mr. Zvonecek and Mr. Cruz. I’ve known Matt Casey for quite some time,” Boden explains. “Casey, Brett, this is Officer Voight and Officer Olinsky from the 21st precinct.” 

“Are Joe and Otis in trouble?” Sylvie jumps at the chance to ask the question, her voice nervous but firm. 

“They’re not going to get arrested are they?” Sylvie jumps in with another question, her hand on the back of Otis’s chair. Sylvie complains a lot about Joe and Otis, but Matt knows how protective she is of them. They’re like brothers to her, and it shows. 

“Relax, there’s no need to panic,” Voight chips in. “They’re just here to discuss the financial repercussions. Fines of 150 dollars will be given individually, but we’re not arresting anyone at this time. You guys need to promise not to pull any crap like this again though, okay?” 

“It’s not our fault this place is no fu—” Otis starts to mumble under his breath but is interrupted by Sylvie giving him a swift elbow to the shoulder and a pointed glare. He takes the hint and shuts up, letting Joe finish the talking. 

“We won’t,” Joe promises. “We swear, we won’t do anything like this again.” 

“We’ll make sure of that, officers,” Sylvie reassures them, her voice in that same overly professional tone she uses for oral presentations in class. 

“Ok then. It’s settled,” Boden declares. “Thank you, officers, for talking to these young men. And thank you, Matt and Sylvie, for being the responsible ones.” 

Olinsky and Voight hand Otis and Joe their own separate fines, then watch as Boden dismisses them. Sylvie and Matt let Joe and Otis go first, leaving Boden’s office right behind them. Immediately, even as they approach the door and go into the freezing, icy air, Matt can feel everyone’s tension practically melting out of them and away into the night. 

“Phew, that was a close one,” Joe sighs. 

“You guys know you still have to pay 150 dollars each, right?” Matt interjects, befuddled at how relaxed they seem now. 

“Yeah, and thank god it’s only that. It could have been so much more! You guys cannot keep pulling stupid illegal pranks like this,” Sylvie scorns. 

“We know, but it was so worth it,” Otis chuckles. His laughter, however, is cut off by Sylvie taking her mittens off and whacking them both on the back of the head from behind with them. 

“Ow! Son of a bitch,” Joe yelps as they both keep walking to Matt’s car while looking back at him and Sylvie. “What was that for?” 

“For being idiots.” Sylvie rolls her eyes, the two guys groaning at the familiar chastising. “And for making me have to drag poor Matt out here just to bail you out.” 

“Well that’s because you took your car to the dealer like a commoner,” Joe mumbles.

“Not. Helping.” She retorts through gritted teeth. 

“Relax,  _ mom _ , everything turned out fine! Matt, you’re with us on this right?” 

“Leave me out of this,” he grumbles. 

Sylvie smiles proudly at Matt, then sticks her chin out triumphantly as she pushes past all three of them and makes her way to the truck. She climbs in the passenger seat just like before, and Joe and Otis begrudgingly get in the backseat. 

The car ride back isn’t exactly quiet. Joe and Otis explain that their prank was done in an attempt to help Joe narrow down the possibilities for who his soulmate is. Last Matt checked, he was at 150 possible candidates, one for every dollar he’s going to have to pay for this stupid prank. Then, when they’re done reporting their findings to him and Sylvie, who are only really half listening, they start bickering among themselves as Matt pulls out of the parking lot and turns the windshield on to wipe the snow away. 

“Thank you for this again,” Sylvie leans over the cupholder divide in the front seats to thank him. “I hope I didn’t totally ruin your date, Olivia’s so great. You said you guys were done, right? I’d feel so terrible if I made you feel pressured to end early, or—”

“Sylvie, Sylvie, hey,” he laughs. “I told you, I don’t mind. And we were already done with dinner anyway. Not that it would have made a difference.” 

“It was that bad?” 

“No, no,” he shakes his head as he continues. “It was… nice. But there just wasn’t anything there. And she’s definitely not my soulmate. Not that it matters, but still.” 

“Aw, I’m sorry,” she sighs. “Hopefully this didn’t ruin the whole dating experience. You shouldn’t be afraid to keep looking for your soulmate. Or, at the very least, for someone to love.” 

Joe and Otis bicker quietly in the back as the car idles in front of the red traffic light. There’s no radio on, just the warm hissing of the car heaters. Matt looks over at Sylvie while waiting for the light to turn, swallowing hard when she looks back at him. It goes from a sweet and innocent glance to something else that feels deeper, and he feels the grip on his wheel tighten. “It’s okay. I’m not in any rush.” 

Matt says it because he’s not. He’s seriously, totally, completely  _ not _ in a rush to find someone. But Matt pulls forward as the light turns green again, and can’t stop thinking about what Olivia had said. And, for the life of him, can’t stop thinking about the fact that he doesn’t  _ want _ to. 

More than friends? Yeah, maybe not so crazy. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks. If there's any chapter to think about when thinking about this fic, it's this one. It's THE chapter!!! 
> 
> Also, since I forgot to mention this in the notes of my last chapter: putting Skor bits in your pancakes is something my family has done for ages. I've always loved it and have tried getting as many people to do it which is why I wrote it into chapter 9. Pancakes with Skor bits are super delicious, try it out!
> 
> ALSO: I know I said on Tumblr that I was going to post this tomorrow (Friday) but I got some stuff done early so I thought I'd post it a day early for you guys <3

_“CAMPUS NEWS UPDATE: Soulmates may seem closer than they appear.”_

“I hate this.” Sylvie groans, her legs sprawled across the couch onto Matt’s lap. The blankets between them are all tangled up and messy, the sky outside grey and bland. 

The past few weeks have put Matt in a weird mood. It’s not anything intentional, or even all that awful. His co-op is amazing, and they’ve promised to put in a good word wherever he decides to apply for a job in the future. His friends are all closer than ever, his classes are going great, his life seems good on paper. So really, he has every reason to be happy— and he is, for the most part. But with the dreary winter weather and the frustrating journey of finding his soulmate being hopeless, he’s downright gloomy. December had come in the blink of an eye and it was a huge wake-up call for him on how far away he feels from finding whoever it is that’s meant for him. 

That’s why Sylvie is now on his couch, the two of them lazily wasting away their Sunday morning together. Matt’s not the only one in a gloomy mood. Sylvie’s birthday is one week away, and she had called him up to vent about it. He could hear how grumpy she was about everything and could relate to the feeling all too well, so he invited her over to cheer her up. If he’s being honest, he needs cheering up too-- which, these days, only happens when Sylvie’s around. That’s why Matt’s in the pile of blankets that he’s in now. The promise of blankets, ice cream, and watching both Mamma Mia movies was enough to convince Sylvie to come over. And now they’re both on Matt’s couch, wallowing together while eating ice cream, procrastinating on important work they have to get done. 

“What are you talking about? We’re only watching these movies because of you,” he argues.

“No not this,” she backtracks, pointing at the TV screen and then gesturing around the room, “I hate _this_. This-- this waiting around for my birthday thing. I hate it. I’m not 21 for another week and I feel crappy.” 

“Tell me about it. I’ve been 21 for two months now and still no idea where to start on soulmates or dating.” 

“Ugh, I feel you on that one. I hate being single,” she sighs, stabbing at the frozen solid ice cream with her spoon. “It sucks. Not even a young Donna Sheridan can distract me from this,” She groans, tilting her head back dramatically. 

“Oh come on, you’re not even trying! If I’m being forced to watch this double feature, and my soulmate’s being forced to hear every song that plays, then you should watch it too.”

“I _am_ watching,” she protests, “I’m just focused on this ice cream.” Her toes poke and prod at his sides playfully in defense, and he laughs while the second movie plays. Her squirming feet settle down though, and his thumb, out of pure reflex alone, gently rubs circles on her calf. The sweet, fleeting moment between them before they turn their attention to the movie only ends up reminding him of the thing that’s been eating him up for weeks now. 

Matt knows how this looks. The movie, the hanging out, the teasing. Honestly, he hadn’t thought anything of it before. It’s just the way he and Sylvie are around each other. But ever since Olivia had brought it up to him on the less than comfortable blind date, he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. About Sylvie. Their friendship is everything and it means the world to him. He’s not about to ruin that over some stupid comment. But not telling her about what Olivia had said feels like he’s keeping some huge secret, and it rubs him the wrong way. It’s brought up some messy feelings he hadn’t even known were there. Now, these lines feel really blurry and confusing. Normally, being with her— even just near her— makes him feel more like himself than he’s ever felt. Everything’s always felt so natural between them, but now? His brain just short circuits at the slightest touch. He has no idea how to be himself around his friend anymore. It’s exhausting. 

Nonetheless, he lets her sprawl her legs out on his lap, lets her drag him into watching movies, lets her be in his life. “Oh, oh! We’re getting to the good part,” Sylvie exclaims, tapping his shoulder gently to get his attention. “This is where Donna meets Bill.” 

“Is that the British guy from the first one?”

“No, that’s Colin Firth’s character. This is the Swedish one.” 

“Ah,” he nods along. “Hey, switch.” Without needing any elaboration Sylvie hands him her pint of ice cream, her eyes still glued to the television, and Matt hands her his pint. They couldn’t decide between the two flavours so they started switching at random. 

He’s watching as Donna and Bill dance on a boat without falling off or crashing, which is shockingly the least unrealistic thing about the movie. Bill and Donna are about halfway through _Why Did It Have To Be Me?_ when Matt hears knocking at his door. “It’s open!” Matt yells out, his eyes still focused on the TV, and Kelly walks in seconds later.

“Hey. What are you doing here?” Kelly asks, looking at Sylvie.

“Showing your friend the best movie ever,” she explains, giving him her innocent puppy dog eyes with her mouth still full of ice cream. “And eating ice cream.” 

“Ice cream? It’s like 9 in the morning, Vie. And the middle of winter.” 

“We’re wallowing,” Matt argues defensively. “I’m soulmate-less.”

“Me too. I’m not 21 yet either, to make things worse.”

“You guys are pathetic,” Severide teases back. 

Sylvie rolls her eyes, then Matt picks a pillow up off the couch and whips it at Severide. His arms fly up in defense and block the hit as he laughs. “Hey! What the hell?” 

“Zip it, Severide,” he grunts jokingly. 

“Yeah, zip it Severide,” Sylvie giggles along triumphantly, stretching out on the couch and draping her legs over Matt’s lap again. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have a fiancée you can bother?” 

“Do you guys just throw your phones in the garbage when you’re around each other? Check the chat, we’ve been talking on there for hours,” he explains.

It’s not really intentional. Neither Matt nor Sylvie plan on ignoring their other friends when they’re hanging out solo, it’s just a rule Matt has. He keeps his phone's ringer off when he’s hanging out with Severide too, and Gallo, and Joe, and everyone. It’s just a reflex, sort of like what he feels when he’s in the library. He guesses Sylvie does the same thing though, and he likes it.

He pulls out his phone to check the group chat though and instantly regrets it when he sees swarms of messages that have come in from his friends. Oops. “Shit, sorry,” he apologizes to Severide, who’s already looking through Matt’s fridge. “This seems like a lot. What’d we miss?”

“Joe’s got a lead.” 

  
“What?” Sylvie’s jaw drops as she asks the question and Matt would be lying if he said his jaw didn’t drop a little too. It’s been ages since Joe’s had any actual progress on finding his soulmate. Matt doesn’t blame the others for blowing up his phone now that he knows what the fuss is about. It’s sort of a big deal. 

“Yeah, and a real one this time,” Severide elaborates. “He’s been hearing church choir music for the past hour and apparently there are only a few churches around here with vocal groups that rehearse in the mornings.” 

“That’s great! So now he just has to narrow it down from those few churches?” Sylvie asks. 

“He already did. He and Otis have been out all morning. Gallo and Ritter tackled the first one, which got shut down two months ago, and Joe and Otis took the second one, which had locked doors all around. They’re on their way to the third one now. Everyone’s tagging along to help him see if his soulmate is there.”

“Don’t tell me we’re doing what I think we’re doing,” Matt groans. 

“That’s right, Case.” Kelly fills in Matt’s thoughts for him with an amused sparkle in his eye, reveling in the idea. “We’re going church-crashing.”

“Kelly! They’re probably performing for people, we could be disrupting a whole Sunday service,” Sylvie argues. 

“Who cares? There are plenty of other uninterrupted Sunday mornings people can have. This one won’t make a difference.” 

Matt’s still on the fence about this whole thing and looks over to Sylvie, who locks eyes with him. She looks as hesitant as he does, but gives a small shrug as if to say _‘why not?’_ and Matt caves. Everyone’s going to be so happy for Joe if this does end up being a success, and there’s no way he’s going to miss out on that. So he nods to Sylvie and then turns back to Severide. “Alright, we’re in.” 

“Atta boy,” Kelly exclaims. “Get your coats on, we’re leaving now. Stella’s waiting in the car, she’s getting the address from Joe as we speak.” 

  
Matt sighs and gets up off the couch, turning off the TV. Sylvie’s eyes move between Matt and the pint of ice cream in his hand and he responds by giving it to her. She moves to the freezer to put both pints back. Apparently, this wordless communication confuses Severide, because Matt’s getting his coat when he notices Severide staring at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” he replies, a little too delicately. Matt doesn’t like that just as much as he hadn't liked Olivia bringing up his relationship with Sylvie. It’s that same suggestive tone, except Severide doesn’t care enough to pry when Matt doesn’t want him to. 

He’s not an idiot, he knows what Kelly is thinking. This isn’t the first time their friends have noticed the increasing amount of time he and Sylvie have spent together. Matt caught Stella last week referring to them as “the old married couple”. He and Sylvie are friends and they always have been, albeit not as close as they are now. So then why are all of these confusing feelings popping up? 

“Hey, you ready?” Sylvie comes up from behind him, pulling on her beanie and gloves. Her voice brings him back to reality, startling him slightly.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Matt smiles, stomaching the weird feeling he gets when she smiles back. It’s a totally normal feeling to get, he assumes. Obviously, he likes her smile. She’s one of his best friends, he loves seeing her happy. Right? 

_God,_ lately he can’t even pretend to be good at lying to himself. 

They head out with Severide, Matt locking up before they make their way down to Stella’s car idling on the sidewalk. “Hey you two,” she calls out, leaning against the driver’s side. “Didn’t think Kelly was going to be able to drag you guys out of there. Took him forever.” She gives a swift wink to Sylvie followed by a massive bear hug, which sends Sylvie chuckling. 

“Hate to break you two up, but we need to get going,” Severide shouts as he gets in the passenger seat. “Joe’s already on the road with Otis, and Gallo and Ritter left five minutes ago. 

“Such a buzzkill, baby,” Stella sighs, feigning annoyance as she gets back behind the wheel. Matt climbs into the back with Sylvie as Stella steps on the gas. “So what were you two up to this morning?” 

“They were making bad life decisions,” Severide teases. 

“Ok, first of all, Mamma Mia and ice cream on a Sunday morning is an _awesome_ life decision,” Sylvie argues, “and secondly, it was very much needed to cheer me up.” 

“Sounds like amazing decision-making to me,” Stella awes jokingly. “You two goons better invite me next time!” 

“Don’t encourage her, Stella. I can’t buy her a birthday present if I spend all my money on ice cream,” Matt grunts and smirks teasingly at Sylvie, who elbows him gently in the side and laughs.

“Very funny, mister,” she giggles. “Don’t go spending too much on my gift though.”

“Just try and stop me,” he chuckles. 

“I’m serious, Matt Casey! I don’t want anyone going bankrupt on my account.” 

Matt should have seen this coming. Sylvie is humble to a ridiculous degree. She says it just makes her stronger but Matt knows that of all the qualities that make Sylvie Brett strong, her inability to celebrate herself is not one of them. “We _are_ allowed to buy you presents though, right?” He inquires.

“I’ll allow it,” she decides, smiling mischievously. 

“Good.” He nods, satisfied, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Sylvie’s eye linger on him for a second before looking back out the car window on her side. 

Stella switches the subject after that, and Matt spends the rest of the car ride in silence. It isn’t too long before they pull up to the first church, hopping out of the car once they see Joe, Otis, Gallo, and Ritter standing outside the front doors.

“You guys are late,” Joe huffs. “What took you so long?” 

“We had to get these two slowpokes,” Stella explains. 

“Sorry,” Sylvie winces bashfully. “Don’t worry, Joe, I’m sure they’re still in there.” 

“They are, I can hear them,” he nods firmly. “Well, at least I think they’re in there. Let’s just hope the doors on this church are unlocked.” 

Otis pats him on the back and grasps the doorknob with Joe, the two of them pulling on the door. Thankfully, it’s unlocked and the group makes their way in. 

Matt has to admit, it’s a nice church. The dark wooden benches all look fairly new and there’s plenty of space. But the first thing he notices is the church music being sung, the voices reverberating off the walls. Thankfully, there are no people in the pews, just a group of singers practicing alone. This means that their church crashing— with Gallo and Ritter’s whispers, Otis and Joe arguing as Otis nudges him forward, and Sylvie’s quiet, last-minute protests that they shouldn’t be there— isn’t as disruptive as they’d feared. 

“Hey, hey! Hello? Hellooooo?” Joe yells out into the church, his words echoing off the high walls and stained glass. Almost immediately, Matt regrets agreeing to this. There’s a group of singers of all ages and backgrounds at the front next to the podium, standing in front of a director who looks _pissed_. Matt imagines he wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted like this either, but there’s no stopping Joe now. 

“Can I help you?” The director, old and seemingly very grumpy, glares at them and waits for an answer. 

Joe nods, his gaze still fixed on the group of recreational singers. “Hi! Yes, my name is Joe Cruz, I’m a student at UChicago, and one of you is my soulmate. Now I know this sounds crazy but I heard this music here from my dorm so I know it’s one of you.”

“This is ridiculous,” the choir director scoffs. “We’re in the middle of practice, this will have to wait.” 

“Come on, just give him a few minutes to figure this out,” Otis pleads. “It’s been driving him nuts.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” he insists.

“Please, sir, if there’s any way you could just pause practice for a few minutes,” Sylvie chips in. 

“No, absolutely not--”

“Let him find his soulmate, you old crone!” Kelly snaps, and the church is quiet for a minute. “Please,” he adds. His voice is quieter this time, but the hostility is still very much there. 

Apparently, it does the trick, because the director looks scared enough to give in. “Alright,” he concedes, “five minutes. And not a minute more. After that, you people are gone.” 

“Ok,” Joe inhales, then exhales, trying to shake off his nerves. It’s pretty much the moment he’s been waiting for since January, it’s huge for him. Matt and the others pat him on the back and urge him forward towards the choir members, being as silently encouraging as they can. “Whoever you are, I’ve been looking for you for a very long time. I may have annoyed you a lot with EDM and Zumba music, but most of that can be blamed on my best friend over there, Otis.” He points to Otis, who rolls his eyes and waves reluctantly before Joe continues. “I know you also like listening to jazz music, and you have really good music taste, by the way. I- I know that you come here some weekends to sing for fun, that you have to be a student at the university, and-- and a few months ago I sang _Baby Got Back_ in what was probably the worst decision I’ve made while sober. Does this sound familiar? Anyone?” 

The crowd of people there is pretty big, but most of them are in their thirties at the very least. But just as Joe starts to lose hope, whispers and chatters erupt in the group and they move to the side to reveal a woman their age, with short, russet hair steps forward. “Hi,” she says nervously. “I’m, uh… I’m Chloe. Chloe Allen.” 

“Holy shit,” Gallo exhales, stunned beyond measure. Ritter’s smiling like an idiot right next to him along with the others. 

“Chloe,” Joe repeats back to her dreamily. “Hi. I’m Joe. I- I already said that, but uh… _wow_. I have been looking for you for a really long time.”

“I’ve been looking for you too,” she chuckles, stepping forward and coming closer to him. They both seem so mesmerized, their gazes never once lingering from each other. “I was nervous that you might be a failed DJ or something.”

“I’m not, thankfully,” he laughs nervously. “That’s my bad, I shouldn’t have tried blasting awful music to find you. I’m just an Engineering major who still lives with his best friend. I hope you’re not disappointed by that.” 

“Only if you’re not disappointed by a terrible baker who shamelessly signs up for community choir in a church to give my soulmate a hint,” she teases. 

“I’m not disappointed by that at all,” he assures her, his smile sweet and sincere. Matt doesn’t think he’s ever seen Joe this happy before; this light-hearted and carefree. “Do you, uh… I mean- would you like to get coffee with me sometime tomorrow afternoon? To talk?”

  
“I’d love to,” she accepts, returning the same overjoyed smile. “Here, I’ll give you my number.” 

“Right! Your number,” Joe realizes. He pulls out his phone and opens the contacts app. 

Matt watches her recite her number to him as he types it in, and can’t help but feel a wave of romanticism wash over him. He’s secretly a total sucker for these things. It’s sweet as hell, and if anyone deserves it, it’s Joe. 

“There you go.” 

“Great! Thank you, I’ll uh, I’ll see you later then?” 

“I’ll see you later then, Joe Cruz.” Chloe’s smile is wide and her laugh echoes throughout the church, the joy of a new beginning felt by everyone. Matt can already tell that they’ll be a lot more than just platonic soulmates. She and Joe stare at each other adoringly as the sun shines in through the old church windows. Matt feels the heat of the warm winter sun on his arm too, until he looks over and sees Sylvie next to him. It’s a strange realization, knowing that the heat he feels is from the touch of her skin and not warm, radiant sunlight. There’s hardly a difference, which terrifies him. 

“Your time is up, young man,” the choir director barks suddenly, glaring at the group. Matt tenses up as the director approaches a lovestruck Joe who is hardly listening, but he and Severide grab Joe by the shoulders and yank him away from Chloe. 

  
“Joe, we gotta go, man,” Severide explains, watching as Joe begrudgingly lets himself get herded away from his soulmate by the group. Chloe gives him a small, bashful wave as Joe comes back to his circle of friends. The director is still there, approaching them slowly. 

“Ok ok, we’re leaving,” Matt assures the director, his hands up defensively. He backs up slowly as the rest of his friends follow his lead. Soon, everyone’s scurrying out of the church. Severide is whistling cockily, Stella’s laughing as he picks her up and spins her around, Joe’s waving while continuing to walk backward, Gallo and Ritter are goofing around with each other. Even Sylvie starts laughing as they all stumble over each other when leaving the church. 

“The Catholic church is a fucked up, sexist organization!” Stella shouts out triumphantly, laughing as Gallo and Ritter cheer her on. 

“Oh god, run,” Ritter shouts out, panicked but laughing along with everyone. Joe immediately looks back to Chloe, who’s watching the whole thing while laughing shyly, and starts apologizing from the other end of the church for his friends. 

Matt knows their friend group must seem pretty obnoxious right about now, but _damn_ does it feel good. They all stumble out of the church, clumsy and laughing and overjoyed. Joe has been waiting for this moment for so long. The fact that he gets this victory now gives everybody hope, especially Matt. 

“Congratulations, Joe!” Sylvie cheers. “You finally did it!” 

“Yes!” He exclaims. They all laugh as they bunch up at the door and squish their way through them. 

“Ow! Otis, you kicked me in the ankle,” Sylvie yelps as everyone pushes their way through the doors and onto the sidewalk, the choir resuming their singing in peace once more.

“Sorry, there’s just no space. We’re all so bunched up and close together,” he explains. 

Sylvie holds her injured ankle as Joe addresses everyone. “Thank you guys for coming. I couldn’t have done any of this without you. You guys are the best, really.” 

“Of course, any time,” Sylvie replies, rubbing Joe’s shoulder supportively. “To new beginnings.” 

“To new beginnings,” Matt and the others repeat back. 

“We should get going,” Stella reminds them. “I got stuff to do and I parked the car two blocks away. Where are you guys parked?” 

“The same place,” Joe explains, pointing down the street. 

Matt and the others start making their way down the street towards their cars. They fall into line, forming groups of two to accommodate the width of the sidewalk. Matt moseys along next to Sylvie, sandwiched between Kelly, Stella, Gallo, and Ritter, but it only takes a few seconds for Matt to notice Sylvie wincing. “What’s up with you?” 

“Argh, just my stupid ankle,” she brushes it off. “I think Otis kicking it hurt more than I realized. And these stupid heeled boots are not helping.” 

“Well be careful, you don’t want to wipe out on a nice patch on the sidewalk. Here,” he offers as he extends his arm out. She accepts it, leaning on him for support as they walk, but keeps wincing. 

“This is just making my feet hurt even more,” she groans tiredly. Her expression changed in a heartbeat though, and Matt can practically see the lightbulb go off in her head. “Let me ride you.” 

“Uh… I-...”

“Oh, no,” she laughs bashfully, realizing the double entendre to her words. “I meant like on your back. I can’t handle this pain anymore.” 

“You want me to give you... a piggyback?” 

“...Please?” She asks, her voice small and hesitant. 

Matt mulls it over for a minute. Things between them are a little weird for him right now, unbeknownst to Sylvie, and he knows having her legs wrapped around his lower back won’t exactly make his mind crystal clear. But he knows she wouldn’t ask unless she’s in real pain, and he wants to do as much as he can to make sure she’s alright, so he gives in. God knows he’d do a hell of a lot more if she asked him to. “Alright, fine. Here.” 

“Yes! Thank you so much, you’re my hero,” she exclaims. Gallo and Ritter stop behind him when he stops in his tracks to stabilize himself. Matt lowers himself and bends his knees, grunting only slightly as Sylvie jumps on his back and wraps her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his stomach, and tucking her chin in the crook of his neck. She’s surprisingly light though, and Matt shouldn’t enjoy the closeness as much as he does. 

“Carry onwards, Prince Charming,” she giggles into his ear. 

“As you wish,” Matt sighs teasingly. 

“Hey, you just quoted The Princess Bride! And pretty well!” 

“What can I say? I’m full of surprises,” he kids. 

“Hm, yeah,” she laughs quietly. He feels his cheeks burn up as he walks forward, Sylvie bobbing against his back. The group laughs when they turn around and see the whole scene, taking pictures. Matt can’t help but laugh too because Sylvie keeps poking and tickling his sides to get him to smile for the pictures. It’s not the best idea, because he ends up almost dropping her, but that just makes the two of them smile even more as everyone takes selfies and pictures of them and the rest of the group. 

Matt ends up carrying her on his back all the way to the car. It’s only two blocks, fortunately, so it’s sort of a breeze. They reach the car in no time, then all give hugs Joe before parting ways with him and Otis. Gallo and Ritter, who had walked to the church, refuse a ride from the guys, claiming they’re perfectly fine walking back in the freezing weather. So just like that, half their group is gone, and Stella climbs back behind the wheel. Kelly gets in next to her, kissing her on the cheek, and Sylvie slides off of Matt’s back. 

“Thanks,” she tells him as she hobbles into the backseat on one foot. 

“Anytime.” Matt goes around to the other side door and can see Severide giving him that same look he had given Matt earlier this morning when he gets in and puts on his seatbelt. Whatever. If Severide’s not going to say anything about it to him, then Matt shouldn’t let it bother him. What goes on between him and Sylvie is theirs and theirs alone, no need for Kelly to start turning it into something it isn’t.

The car ride home definitely isn’t as quiet. Stella raves about how happy she is for Joe, and she and Sylvie talk about inviting Chloe to hang out more and possibly adding her to the group chat. Severide laughs along, mentions inviting her to the wedding, and then the topic switches soon after that. Matt contributes to the conversation but finds himself getting distracted sneaking glances at Sylvie more than once. He can’t help it. Something’s pulling him in, and the lines of their friendship are slowly blurring for him. It’s wonderful, it’s terrifying, and above all else, it’s confusing as hell. 

Matt snaps out of his train of thought when he realizes they’re nearing Sylvie’s building. “Oh god,” she sighs happily, turning to Matt, “this morning has been so great, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah, it has,” he agrees. “Joe seemed happy.” 

“He really did. Ugh, this was just what I needed to cheer me up,” she raves. “I just— I haven’t felt this good in a while. This definitely requires some victory music.” 

“Wouldn’t that require you not being afraid to give yourself away?” 

“Maybe you were right,” she shrugs. “Maybe I shouldn’t be. I mean, look how it turned out for Joe. He’s thrilled. Maybe I just need to blast my favourite tunes and start doing the things I want to again, to stop letting this control me so much.” 

“That’s definitely a change of pace from this morning,” he chuckles. “I’m glad to see you’re back to your normal self.” 

“I told you, it’s a good day,” Sylvie beams, smiling. she pulls her phone out of her coat pocket, tangled up in her earbuds. 

Stella finally pulls onto the side of the road in front of Sylvie’s building, keeping the car idling. “We’re here, Vie,” Severide notifies her. 

“Ok, thank you guys for the ride.” She smiles, putting the earbuds in her ear. 

“Of course, anytime,” Stella replies. “Hope your ankle feels better!” 

“Bye!” Sylvie gives them a thumbs up, then hops out of the car and waves to Matt one last time as the music starts to play on her phone before turning around to hobble up the path to her apartment building. 

Stella and Kelly make nothing of it, talk among themselves for a bit while Matt stares out the window in shock, his face nearly pressed against the window. Because as he watches her bob her head, her blonde hair ruffling at her shoulders as she gets in the rhythm of the song, his whole world changes. The lyrics of the song she’s listening to wash over him, just as they had that karaoke night. He knows it’s that song, that same sweet, tender song by Olivia Newton-John that he’d heard her sing before. Not because he can see her head bobbing along in the distance, not even because he remembers it’s her guilty pleasure song just like he remembers everything about her. No, none of that. He knows it because he can hear it too. Right there and then, _he can hear it_. 

_“But now there's nowhere to hide_

_Since you pushed my love aside_

_I'm out of my head_

_Hopelessly devoted to you_

_Hopelessly devoted to you_

_Hopelessly devoted to you...”_

Matt watches her, this woman he’s grown to be practically best friends with, singing along as she enters the building and out of sight, the music playing in his own ears crystal clear as day. He just can’t believe it, and yet he has no choice but to, because it’s true. The signs, the hints he’s had since September, the clues he’s been too stupid to notice, it’s all there. The blood drains from his face, and shock takes over his whole body as the undeniable truth sets in. 

This is happening. 

Sylvie Brett is his soulmate. 


End file.
